how much are you willing to pay for good customer service?
As a discount shopper, good customer service isn’t necessarily a huge part of my shopping vocabulary. Finding a good bargain often means sacrificing things like orderly dressing rooms, helpful sales people (or any sales people at all), the ability to return a purchase… But when you go into the experience knowing these things, you feel ok about it. The older I get, sometimes I do crave service: a kind saleswoman to present items of various colors and sizes for me to step into and out of without leaving the dressing room, racks I can browse effortlessly sans crying babies and shoving grandmas… Well, I got a taste of great customer service, without having to pay an arm and a leg, today at J. Crew. Here’s my story:
Remember those J. Crew cigarette pants I bought a few weeks ago FULL PRICE for $85 or so? Well, on my way home from Utah, I noticed a two-inch rip in the crotch seem. I had only worn them 5 or so times so this was, of course, unacceptable.
Of course, the one thing I pay full price for falls apart. But… they are J. Crew so I had to give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe it was just a flaw in this particular pair. To the store I went, where they:
- Exchange the pants for a new pair, no questions asked
- AND credit my card for $10 since the pants were on promotion
Now that’s great customer service. I completely got over the fact that they were ripped because I got a new pair AND $10 off the price I had paid. Customer retention 101. Go J. Crew.
