I had a GREAT customer service experience today. I mean, truly amazing.

A few weeks ago, I ordered something custom made and it arrived early last week and was not quite right. It was not unusable, by any stretch, but was not made exactly as ordered. So, I sent the company a photo and asked them why it turned out this way and what could be done to fix it.

We had a few email exchanges, in which they asked for more info (product number, order info, etc.), so they could investigate what happened. I remained polite throughout (remember, If Done Right, Nice Begets Nice), and this morning got an email thanking me for my patience, and telling me that the entire order was being remanufactured, and would be sent express, so should arrive by Friday. Also, they put a note in my account that my items can only be manufactured at their primary facility from now on (apparently, the poor-quality order was made offsite by a subcontractor, which is what they were investigating.)

I am stunned. They didn’t even ask me to return the previous items, which I think would have been well within their rights.

So now, I want to yell from the rooftops about how great this company is, and how grateful I am for this awesome service, but what if that isn’t good for them? They only make custom-ordered items, so would I be opening a can of worms for them, or more likely a can of scams? If I shout to the world that they replaced my entire (expensive) order for free, will it cause others to trump up complaints to get their orders doubled for free? It really is a struggle to know what to do that will be best for the company that’s done right by me.

I think I have to simply stick with a friendly, enthusiastic “Thank you” note and behave as if we were in a pre-social media world.  In other words, I’ll share my experience with anyone I can talk to face-to-face, but beyond that, there are too many risks.

So…thanks, Anonymous Company.  I really appreciate it!  You have my business for a long, long time.  Guess that’s the best reward I can offer for your amazing service.

4 Responses

  1. I’ve had that dilemma before, on Amazon and ebay for example, where I got a partial refund to apologise for a poor experience. I left vague feedback, extolling the excellent customer service, without the specifics of why they had made me so happy. (Although, I guess that’s a bit late now for you, as we might put two and two together!)

  2. As someone who custom makes things by hand I can chime in here. I think you can say everything you just said except the “didn’t have to send it back” part. Great customer service, speedy and attentive and 100% awesome resolution to a problem etc. All those things are great.

  3. I had a great customer service experience this evening and thought of you. Arrived at a hotel with Punk+4 kids in tow, to find they booked the wrong room. They don’t even have 6-person suites as advertised on their site. I chose kindness and patience, acknowledged that the clerk helping me wasn’t the one who made the mistake, but boy did he set it right. He rearranged and finagled until he had two adjacent rooms to accommodate our family, and didn’t even charge extra for the second room. Kindness was repaid with kindness, and I enjoyed the opportunity to make him feel happy by letting him know he was my hero today.