Comments on: Customer service

By: Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist || Buying pants || December || 2008

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 04:22:15 +0000

[...] shoes every day, and finding comfortable, durable shoes is worth it to me. I love my Ecco boots – I bought them two years ago and they’re holding up just fine despite daily wear and tear (my previous pair of boots [...]

By: Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist || Transactional exchanges || November || 2006

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 05:21:13 +0000

[...] Customer service [...]

By: chuck

chuck — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 05:45:12 +0000

I just had awesome customer service at REI last week. I brought in a pair of hiking boots that I bought in 2001. The sole was failing on both shoes in a way that seemed less like wear and more like bad plastic (I thought I had bought them in 2003, and was definitely something they should cover under warrenty.) Once they found them in their computer (something that took a while), the customer service agent looked up at me and said, “Ok, go pick out a replacement.” I was kind of surprised, though a little sad. I had hoped they could be repaired, but wasn’t really expecting it.

I went and found I preferred the Keen brand to the current REI brand (the old ones were REI/Raichle brand). I brought them down. I ended up getting $10 back because the new boots were cheaper than the old boots with a use discount. Crazy.

By: Christy

Christy — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 23:57:32 +0000

REI generally has excellent customer service, since most of their sales folk are hard-core addicts there for the discounts.

I’ve also had extremely good experience with their customer service. When my rain jacket was leaking they examined and replaced it, demanded to check Uboat’s as well (he happened to be wearing it at the counter) and gave him a steep discount on a new one despite the fact the jacket was 5 years old and heavily used. When I had a zipper break they offered to either send it out for repair or let me get it repaired and hand them the bill- whatever I preferred.

Good stuff.

By: Bats

Bats — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 21:42:41 +0000

I had a pretty good experience with Fujitsu that I blogged about: there were problems at first, but they got it right in the end, and in spades. I donâ€™t expect to get any help when I shop in a department store or a Wal-Mart - itâ€™s a transactional experience where I give them money and they give me merchandise. Good, I now have a name for my experience at Home Depot. I tend to shop there, not expecting anything in the way of helpful service. Just keep things in stock, stay the hell out of my way, and keep the checkout line moving in a speedy and expedited manner. Or better yet, provide me with an automated checkout, so I don't have to deal with any human beings who can't enter a SKU lookup code. To use a term from my classes, such services are commodities where they can only compete based on price and efficiency. Heh.. that reminds me--did you end up watching a few more seasons of The Wire? This reminds me of the way the Stringer Bell (one of the head drug dealers, for those not familiar with the series) is taking economics classes at night. He then rips his dealers a new one talking about elastic and inelastic markets, and the reason they need to keep the quality of their "product" up.

By: helava

helava — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 21:15:26 +0000

This also reminds me of our discussion about videogame retailers – I think there’s definitely a retail space to be found for a game retailer that actually is staffed by knowledgeable, professional salespeople, who actually care about providing the right experience for someone. Walk out with a game that really genuinely matches your taste that you didn’t know about, and I’d bet you’d go back, even if the games are a few bucks more.

By: helava

helava — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 21:12:03 +0000

So, when I was in high school, I went on a canoeing trip with my class. My canoe-mate decided he could lean the canoe to steer it, resuting in us capsizing, my sunglasses getting swept from my head, then squished between the canoe floating downstream, and a rock. This left a huge scratch along the front of the lenses, and broke off one of the earpieces. I sent the remaining bits back to Oakley with a humorous note about my canoemate being a moron, and asking if there was anything that could be done – just a replacement earpiece would have been awesome, and to please send me the repair bill, so long as it’d be within a certain price range.

Three days later, a brand-new pair of the next-year’s version of those glasses came in the mail – you couldn’t even get those particular shades in the store yet.

I was totally blown away. I’d spent the extra scratch on a pair of Oakley’s because I was lifeguarding at the time, and having quality sunglasses made a huge difference in the level of eyestrain you’d experience during a full day in bright sunlight. Now, my current prescription glasses are Oakleys, and my only pair of sunglasses are also Oakleys. I know they’re expensive, but I trust in the quality, and know that if anything goes wrong, I can expect extraordinary customer service. I *gladly* pay the difference.