We’re all quick to put a tweet out there when someone screws up #fail. I’m often moved to rant on and on after suffering a great injustice at the hands of a minimum wage earning customer service rep at the mall. I thought it might be nice just this once to talk about Great customer service (so good it needs to be capitalized).
Philadelphia got socked with close to two feet of snow right before Christmas. This is a very rare event. We usually are lucky to get enough snow to cover the ground let alone make a decent snowman. But there we were, a sunny Sunday morning facing a big dig-out. I pulled my boots out of the closet and considered how thrilled they must be to be worn for what they were made for. I had bought them from Columbia Sportswear online at least seven years ago and probably wore them no more than 10 or so times.
Fast forward to later in the day and we are headed out to lunch. We’re sitting on the subway and I look down and notice my boots are cracked on the top of the toe part, the part where it’s bendy. I comment to my husband but quickly forget; after all they are seven or so years old.
We did a bit of walking around Philadelphia and by the time we got back on the subway to go home my boots had disintegrated to the point they were not much of a boot anymore. I thought of all those commercials with Bert abusing both her son and his outerwear strapped to the roof of her SUV driving through either a blizzard or a car wash.
I quickly checked on their website for their warranty on my boots. Surely it must be a lifetime warranty. Nope, just one year on footwear. But I thought, my boots have only been worn about 10 times. That’s less than one year in boot years no?
I took a picture of my disintegrated boots with my iPhone and sent the picks to Columbia’s customer service department. I admitted they were quite old but was their anything they could do? Let me remind you this was sent five days before Christmas…a busy time for them.
I quickly got a response that my complaint was received but due to the busy holiday I should not expect a reply in less than a couple days. Better than I would have expected. Then I received an e-mail with a link to track my complaints progress as it was reviewed with an estimate of hearing something in about 10 days. (Excellent work, set the expectations right away). I had almost forgot about the fate of my boots when I received an email asking for my shoe size and home address so my new boots could be shipped to me!
They arrived today and aren’t they wonderful. The boots that disintegrated were no longer even being made. These are definitely an upgrade to the ones I bought. Did they have to replace them? The warranty clearly stated not. But Columbia gets it. It’s more important to stand behind your brand promise than it is to stand behind your warranty.
Which one does your company stand behind?
I almost hesitate to publish this post. Ever since mentioning Cole Haan pumps in a previous blog, every time I browse the web my pages are covered with Cole Haan ads. At least this might change things up visually for me for a while.
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Traci, thank you for sharing this story! Sadly, most of the customer service stories are usually complaints and despite our feelings about corporate America, it’s unjust to focus solely on the negative. It’s great to see someone who is willing to share their positive experience and furthermore, use Social Media to spread the message. Success stories don’t just provide encouragement to business, but force other businesses to evaluate their own customer service. After all, in a world of communication that grows tighter every day, chances are, someone is talking about your brand. You better make sure it’s positive.
Thanks for the comment Eric. Maybe I’ll make this a feel good Friday habit #FGF. Maybe instead of scaring good customer service into us with horror stories we can use the pay it forward method.
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