My Vitamin Shoppe Experience

Carmen S — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:22:26 -0500

I had a bad experience, on top of more than a few bad experiences, and blogged about it. Three days later, the Vice President of Retail for The Vitamin Shoppe emailed me, and we had a lovely phone chat. She sent me a large box with many of the products that we use, and a gift card for the rest. I am also supposed to let her know of my next shopping experience. I didn't blog about it in order to receive a freebie, although that was nice.

I really hate poor customer service, This was bad service done right.

--
Carmen

Keep posted with my life on my blogs:
www.momtothescreamingmasses.typepad.com - a story of one woman's insanity with her six kids
www.theelffdiet.com - how I lost 80 pounds with a New Year's Resolution
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Biscottis, A Bag of Books, And A Bruhaha over anUpgraded Gift Certificate

Elana Centor — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:28:23 -0500

They are moments that take us by such surprise that they are forever seared in our memories and recalled over and over again when we want to talk about extraordinary customer service.

They are rare moments so completely out of the norm that they become our own personal gold standard for defining great customer service.

Maybe it's because these are acts that we doubt we would do ourselves.

Maybe it's because we know they are done without a hidden agenda.

Whatever the reason, they are our go- to moment when we think about a wonderful customer service experience.

My moment took place in a corporate dining facility five years ago.I had been staying at the facility for several days and the head of the cafeteria noticed that I wasn't eating desserts.

He asked why and I mentioned in an off-handed way that after a big meal I prefer biscottis.

Two days later while my group was having dinner,Gus came out with a plate of homemade biscottis. Did I mention that he made all of the desserts from scratch?

I was touched. He had never made a biscotti before. For the rest of my stay, Gus brought out a plate of biscottis every night. And when it was time to return home, Gus was waiting with a care package of enough biscottis to last me a long time.

Gus died several years ago.I've spent the past two weeks at Gus's corporate facility.I've been thinking about him a lot. I haven't had dessert. There are no biscottis on the dessert table.

Laurie Kingston who blogs at Not Just About Cancer had a Gus moment while she was attending BlogHer in San Francisco. During the trip she had stopped by a book store to pick up some presents for her young sons. As she writes in her blog, in a somewhat inebriated state, the books were left in the back of taxi in Oakland.

My receipt didn't have the name of the taxi company (and I couldn't remember). I checked twice with hotel security (in case it had been found and dropped off there) and with the lost and found table for BlogHer.

By Saturday, I had given up and was trying to decide if I should return to City Lights and attempt to replace the presents I'd bought.

Then, on Saturday, as I was being miked for the session at which I was speaking, I heard my name being called. "I was your taxi driver," he said. And on his arm was a bag full of books.

"How did you find me?"

He made typing motions with his fingers. "Your name was on your credit card slip."

I was euphoric.

I asked him if I could hug him.

I offered him money (he refused).

Babz took his picture (which I won't post here because it doesn't do him justice).

And everyone made a big fuss.

"I was in the neighbourhood," he said, modestly.

But I know that he went to great lengths to track me down. He googled my name to find my blog. My last post had said that I was going to the BlogHer conference. I had linked to the BlogHer agenda, so he must have read it to find my name and the title of my session (I had told him that I was speaking).

He then came to the hotel, checked the directory and followed the labyrinthine corridors to find me.

I am so touched by what he did. I wish that there had been something I could have done (I could have insisted on giving him money but I felt like it would embarrass him). His name is Eduardo and he is a lovely man.

Are these customer service moments really that rare or do we simply enjoy talking about bad service more?

Over at Church of the Customer,Jackie Huba shared an incident where she had gone to a spa to purchase a gift certificate for a friend. The receptionist told Jackie that the fee was $51.50- a $1.50 handling fee.

Jackie asked her readers what they thought of the fee and if any one else had experienced it. Readers had a lot to say. One of the people who responded was the spa owner who said it really wasn't a handling fee but a fee to cover the costs of an upgraded certificate.

Many of the readers were not satisifed with that response. Doug comment:

Lessons I learned (and relearned) from this blog as a business owner:

1. People really hate the idea of handling fees - particularly for gift certificates.

2. People are more inclined to blog about or use a bad/annoying experience as an example (sorry, Jackie)

3. As a business owner, I need to regularly search on my business name to clear up misunderstanding and address service issues that I may not been made aware of.

4. Don't give out gift certificates. It seems that many commenters have preconceived notions about them; they may not be as benificial to my marketing effort as I would like.

5. Treat all my customers as potential reviewers/bloggers.

6. Even after the apology/explanation, some of the readers won't believe it or get it. In fact, the actual blog will probably be searchable forever, and people will have the opportunity to half-read the post and get misinformation about your product or service.

Do you have a magical customer service story. Or are you of the ilk to share cusomer service nighmares?

Elana blogs about business culture at FunnyBusiness

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My Vitamin Shoppe Experience

Biscottis, A Bag of Books, And A Bruhaha over anUpgraded Gift Certificate