Working at Backcountry.com I see my fair share of customer complaints, suggestions and the like, but fortunately I do get to see a great deal of praise as well.
The following is a blog post from a satisfied customer:
I have debated writing a post about a recent customer service
experience for a while because I selfishly don’t want too many people
to know about this particular site, but since this blog’s readership
averages about 2.7 people per day (less, if my mother has a really full
day planned) and because I’m STILL chuckling over this incident two
weeks later, I figured it was a decent tradeoff.
Steep and Cheap is the company. It is part of the BackCountry family,
a bunch of sites catering to different outdoor recreation niches, and
it’s a great one to keep up in the background if you’re stuck at a
computer for a good chunk of the day. They have a pretty simple concept:
At Steep and Cheap, we sell premium, core outdoor gear and clothing at prices that are downright criminal.
Here’s how it works:
- Steep and Cheap sells one screamin’ deal at a time until it’s gone.
- The deals are fat, so they sell out fast.
- You have to act fast or you’ll miss it, but don’t stress—as soon as one deal sells out, we kick off another.
- It’s back-to-back deals all day long.
So. A few weeks ago my husband snagged a really nice dark red
Outdoor Research jacket on Steep and Cheap for $30. When he got to the
checkout, he found they had added a combined shipping feature to their
site, giving you the option to have them hold your order in case you
want to add something in the next few days. Since we were hoping to
find a similar deal on a jacket for me and he didn’t need his jacket
immediately, we went ahead and did that.
Unfortunately, somehow he overclicked and two jackets showed up in
the final confirmation. When he contacted Steep and Cheap to correct
the number of jackets to be sent, they did so but also accidentally
deleted the “hold” status, triggering immediate shipment. Since we
hadn’t yet found a jacket for me it wasn’t really a big deal right
then, but of course a couple of days later an irresistibly cute
Arc’teryx jacket came up for a lovely price. After I placed my order, I
sent their customer service folks a mail telling them how much we loved
their site and asking for the shipping to be adjusted to reflect our
original wish to combine shipping. I fully expected for them do
graciously do so, but was absolutely not expecting the response I
received:
Hi Andrea,
Thanks for contacting us at Steepandcheap.com. We love you, too. We
would marry you if you weren’t already married. And we weren’t a
company, but rather a young shy boy lost in the throes of love, yea, a
misty-eyed dreamer looking towards the future, still unscathed and
unpolluted by the hardships of mid-adulthood. We would ask your
housemaid to deliver white flowers to you, with an anonymous note that
read “Heaven nor hell could provide me the joy and pain your approval
or lack thereof might impose upon me.” Then, that very night at
midnight we’d stand outside your window playing a love sonnet on the
violin–a heartfelt ribbon of swaying notes and flittering string
plucks. You could get out of bed and come to the balcony to listen.
Instead of saying anything, you might drop a single white handkerchief
slightly soaked with your tears.
But none of that could ever happen, so instead I just gave you a
full refund on your shipping costs. I think it was like 8 bucks. Thanks
for the love.
Attached to the end of that response was a link asking me to rate
the service I received. I think I may have said something in the
comments section about not having a problem with ditching my husband
and marrying them instead.
Now, I have no idea if that response was something they have canned
and are empowered to throw into a reply if they feel it’s appropriate
or if this particular rep was just having a slow morning and a creative
urge. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that they got a fan for
life by simply adding a little bit of fun to a response that really
only needed to be, “Thank you for your request, Andrea, we
have adjusted the shipping fee to reflect a combined shipping order. We
look forward to serving you in the future.” They probably also gained a
customer who would be willing to pay a little bit extra at Steep and
Cheap rather than try to save a few bucks on another site, just to
support the company.
Seems like a great way to do business and probably a great place to work, don’t you think?
The original post can be found here: Making Customer Service Fun--What a Concept!
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