Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Sam's Club - awesome customer service experience

From time to time I point out here on my blog some of the failures in customer service I experience.  I also like to point out when someone really gets it right, as is the case below.

Yesterday I bought a "dozen" red roses for my wife for Valentine's Day from the Sam's Club in Mankato, MN.  When I presented them and she started to cut stems and arrange them she quickly came to realize there were only 10 flower in the bundle.

Odd.  I'm pretty sure the signage said a dozen.  A dozen is the standard unit of measure for roses at this time of the year.  So I decided to contact Sam's Club today online about what happened.  Mistakes happen, and I guess they could've been selling groups of 10 to hit a price point (I doubted that, but was only 99% sure).  I said in the message online who I was, what my member number is (so they could look the transaction up) and what happened.  No complaint beyond that, just more of an FYI and to verify it was supposed to be a dozen and not ten.

Three hours later I had a personally typed message from the manager in charge of that department in the Mankato store.  I had contacted the company through the national web site, so I assume it had to go through a couple of levels of people before it made it back to the local store.  In that message the manager apologized, stated that he went out immediately and double checked their inventory to make sure there weren't others, and the assurance that they would send me a gift card for the price of the flowers "plus something extra for your time".

Wow.  That is over the top impressive customer service.  While I am obviously a member there, and would continue to do business there, that is still a difference maker in terms of how I have been treated.  I wasn't looking for nor expecting a refund honestly.  It was just 2 flowers, and my wife still knows I love her.  So needless to say - I'm impressed.

Good job Sam's Club!

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