We got an email the other day from a consumer who'd had a rough experience with our online ordering: "You have lost a sale, and completely turned me off your products. Do you think this is acceptable?" Complaints do happen, and in brand jobs past, I'd review charts each month summarizing and categorizing them, occasionally with quotes. It all felt very remote, except for the occasional funny ones we'd forward around (a consumer once found a Snickers wrapper in a bag of my brand of frozen vegetables -- I'm guessing the line worker was hungry).
Anyway, since we're just a couple guys in an office at method, this one really bummed me out, and I wrote him back a truly heartfelt email. Having been personally burned by bad customer service recently, I kind of felt his pain. The effect was amazing. In the next email, he wrote: "Thanks again for your follow up. I look forward to having a look at your fine products." It also turned out that he wasn't just a consumer, he was the buyer of an influential organic chain that was interested in carrying our brand. All it took was a little human touch.
It reminded me of a recent coffee I had with the UK head of high-end perfumer Dyptique, Lauren Delafon, who said some of his best consumers were those who had a bad product experience, but then were overwhelmed by amazing customer service. As an example, he said when someone comes in to his shop with a faulty bottle pump and a nearly empty bottle, he always gives them a brand new replacement (a bottle runs $70). Not only that, but he'll gift wrap it with a little card before handing it to them. How much easier and more powerful is that than spending effort to reach completely new consumers in a cluttered marketing world?
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