Two positive customer service stories

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

There are always threads about dismal customer service, so I though I’d give a couple positive ones.

This first started with Domino’s Pizza. I always order (and pay for) extra sauce for the breadsticks, and about half the time they do not bring the extra sauce with the order. So I went online to their comments area, mentioned my concern, and also said that I would prefer they spent an extra minute to make sure the order was correct before rushing it out the door.
A couple of days later, a guy from Domino’s called and apologized profusely, and offered to buy us dinner. So we arranged for our usual order, 2 days later. In addition to our usual two pizzas and an order of sticks, they sent an additional order of sticks and TEN extra containers of various sauces. They definitely responded to my original complaint in a positive way.

Next, last night were at the county fair with our two kids. Things were starting to close up, but we stopped at a vendor to get some ice cream. The lady there said that all she had left was pineapple. Before we could even respond, she said, “I’ve also got two chocolate covered bananas left. Would you like them? I’ll just give them to you.” We accepted her offer, and the kids report that they were delicious.

2

At the beginning of summer, my girlfriend decided to buy a 22.5" Weber One-Touch Gold charcoal grill. The MSRP is $160, and they typically sell for around $150.

We were having trouble finding a store carrying the Gold; most had the Silver, which sells for $95 or so. I called the local Ace Hardware, and lady answering said yes, they have one in stock, and it’s on sale for $89.99. I asked her twice if she was sure this was the price on the Gold, and mentioned that it usually sells for much more. Yes, that’s the price, and we have one in stock. She offered to hold it for me, and I hastily agreed.

Well, as expected, she had seen the sale sign for the One-Touch Silver next to the One-Touch Gold, and figured the Gold was the same price. Figuring this might be the case, I was prepared to pay the price marked on the box, which was $159.99. One of the men working there told me to wait, he’d go find the owner. The owner came out, took a look, and told the cashier to ring it up at $89.99. I was shocked. They took a $70 hit on that sale, even though I was willing to pay the correct price, just to honor the price given over the phone.

By the way, it’s a great grill. :slight_smile:

3

Our local Ace Hardware has great service as well. They have people who actually know what they are talking about and can give advice.

4

I was having a horrible week at work, and I had one evening open in which to run out and do errands. I had a stack of checks to deposit, a short grocery list, a router to return to Best Buy, a note to pick up some baby clothes from a friend, and prescriptions waiting for me at the pharmacy.

I got all my shit in the car, and got the dog in the car, and went off. I had to wait extra long at the pharmacy because they’d forgotten to fill one of my refills. It took extra long at the bank because I had 5 checks to deposit separately and had to keep driving around the ATM to let others go first.

When I got to Best Buy, I checked my bag for the receipt and it wasn’t there. I looked all over the car, wasn’t there. Was about to move on to my next stop but I figured “I’m already here, I’ll just try.”

I went in and asked if I could return w/o a receipt. Sure enough, YOU CAN! The guy was able to look up my purchase on their computer and print out a receipt and finish the return transaction. I made it quicker by having the CC on which I’d made the purchase, but apparently they can look it up without it.

Not the same kind of story as the others, and it’s probably SOP at a lot of stores to do this now…but it really made my day!

5

I was at the grocery store yesterday, and purchased two boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios because I had a $1 coupon if you bought two. The checkout girl told me that the larger boxes on the endcap were 20 cents cheaper (each.) So I said thanks, I’ll go get them. The customer behind me volunteered to go get them for me! So I continued to empty my basket and didn’t slow anybody down. Very nice of him! And I saved money. Win-win!

The following is a post I made in September 2005:

I just sent this e-mail to Continental:

My husband and I were very impressed with one of your employees. We were scheduled to fly to Denver Friday morning at 7:30, but did not have our boarding passes. (We found out later we could have printed them at home from the website. We are not very “airport savvy” as we rarely fly anywhere.) As you know, Hurricane Rita was heading for Houston, and the news was reporting crazy wait times because of no-show employees.

We came to the airport Thursday night around 7:30, thinking we would have to wait forever to get boarding passes, and we wanted to verify --in person-- that our flight was still active and on time. We stood in line for a while, waiting for an agent to become available. Then we split up into two lines.

There was a woman there, named Keisha Turner, who was a volunteer. I think she said she was on vacation, and came to help! She was amazing. She tried to help us with our E-ticket to get boarding passes form the little self-help terminal, but they were not working. So she went to ask an agent, and got her to help us. (I’m so sorry I didn’t get her name.) They were so helpful, and had been there so long. All of the restaurants were closed and they hadn’t eaten much all day. I gave them some peanut butter crackers and they were so very grateful.

Anyway, we were taken care of in less than an hour, and since traffic was not bad like the media had reported, we went home, got some sleep, and came back in the morning. Everything went very smoothly, and we arrived in Denver early!

I would like to thank your staff, and in particular Keisha Turner, for helping us during a very crazy time.

6

Ace Hardware regularly makes top ten lists like this one for customer service. They really have to, to compete with Home Depot and Lowes.

The one near us has free popcorn on weekends!

7

Target also lets you return stuff without a receipt, if you have your credit card.