PrintWhole Foods Customer Service...
...Boggles the mind. We went to Wild Oats (which was purchased by Whole Foods but the store front has not yet been changed). The sausage we got was...less than perfect.
I sent them this e-mail at about 9:00 a.m. today:
Whenever we get to the Tampa WF (still Wild Oats) we grab a selection of the sausage. This is the first time I need to tell you that it was not satisfactory. We purchased two kinds of chicken sausage - Apple and one with Mexican flavors on Friday, 4.18. The meat was ground way too fine and did not include enough dark meat or fat. When grilled, these sausages turned into hard logs. Worse, when we tried to grill off the remaining sausage only two days after purchase (Sunday, 4.20), they were definitely off. We wound up discarding about 6 links of sausage.
We absolutely love Wild Oats/Whole Foods but I wanted to let you know about this.
At 9:25 a.m., my cell rang. It was the Team leader and he fell on his sword so hard, I thought his pancreas would come through the phone. Long story short, next time I go in, I am to request three or four pounds of the sausage of my choice on the house.
They didn't have to work that hard but it was nice they did!
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5 Comments:
Wow! It's amazing to hear that good customer service like that still exists, especially in light of the fearmongering article I just read on the "Death of Customer Service." Heh.
Seriously, though, it's always heartening to hear that some stores and companies still value their customers. Most days, you just get the sense that they barely tolerate or flat-out resent your presence. Thanks for sending a good story along! :)
sheeats at 4:13PM on 04/21/08
That is really nice that you had such a cordial response from WF. We are WF newbies (we didn't have anything nearly as upscale or congenial where we used to live) and it is great to know when you have spent a large portion of the paycheck on high-end groceries, your expectations will be met in some way. Lovely.
frederika at 4:36PM on 04/21/08
I had a similar experience with WF. I had gotten to the checkout line with my miso soup and vegetable sushi before I read the ingredients list on the miso and discovered that it included bonito flakes. I'm a vegetarian, so I returned the soup. (Because the miso soup was served from the sushi area, it didn't have an ingredients list on display like their other soups.)
Later that day, I emailed customer service for the store, suggesting that they display the ingredients for their miso soup, so that more folks don't make that same mistake. I was surprised to hear back within a day; I received a gracious email indicating that they would post the ingredients to the soup near the serving area, and in fact were working on a vegetarian version.
I rarely shop at WF, but I have definitely felt better about doing so since I had this positive experience!
producestories at 7:13AM on 04/22/08
I have had a similar experience, and shop there more and more often because of it. Any time I have ever had to raise a point, make a request, ask a question -- anything -- the person I am speaking to (even a guy stocking shelves, once) has gone out of their way to make sure I walk away satisfied.
Now that food prices are outrageous no matter where you shop, why not shop where the customer service is this outstanding? I love WF!
Brownie at 7:45AM on 04/22/08
@ Brownie - I must agree. We're paying top dollar no matter where we go! Might as well get something for that dollar.
My friend ate at Hooters one night (her BF wanted chix wings so she relented). She got such a case of food poisoning, I won't even begin to describe it. What's worse, when she contacted Hooters to report the illness, the representative said, "Well, we make our sandwiches fresh daily." My friend said, "I don't care if you made it 15 minutes before I got there, you used bad meat to do it." That idiot on the phone went into "defense" mode instead of first apologizing to my friend.
My friend got all wound up and fired off an angry e-mail to Hooters. Only after that did she receive what she should have gotten as result of the first phone call - an apology.
Customer service is not #&@^@ rocket science. All the rep has to do is take ownership of the problem ("Let me help make this right"), show some empathy ("I'm so sorry you got sick, that must have been awful"), offer some type of reimbursement whether it be a comp meal or product; or a gift card ("Give us another chance!"). For $25 you're a big hero and you built a rapport with someone who probably called you loaded for bear.
I did collections for a payroll company - not an easy job. The switchboard operators knew that when they got a customer described as a "Tazmanian Devil," they were to ship that call to me. After a few minutes on the phone I had them eating out of my hand - everybody wins.
chiff0nade at 8:08AM on 04/22/08