I love the Olympics. When I was a kid I dreamed of someday competing as as swimmer. Later I had hopes they would make lacrosse an Olympic sport and dreamed I would win gold with my American teammates. I now live that dream vicariously through the athletes who hurl themselves down mountains or over mile-high jumps or dance their way across ice. And sports that I wouldn’t watch on a normal day are for some inexplicable reason, fun to see every four years on the Olympic stage.
This year I’m loving the snowboarding event. There’s something wonderful about seeing these daredevils fly over the jumps, spinning and turning high in the air with the snow-capped mountains and blue skies as the backdrop. It’s so stunningly beautiful I just want to hop on a plane and visit Sochi.
My two nieces and and one nephew were born in Russia. Tonight I told my niece if she wanted to compete in the Olympics, she could represent Russia or the USA. And then I remembered the time I took Zenia and Julia snowboarding and thought, well they would probably not go so much as competitors but perhaps as spectators. The little hill we went down proved too much for Julia as she went home with a broken arm. I’m pretty sure the slopes of Sochi would land us in crutches warming our toes by the fire in the lodge. Actually that doesn’t sound so bad (minus the crutches.)
Good luck to our American teams—we are cheering you on and hoping you are having the time of your life. We our proud of all of you.
Here’s a quick video of the awesome talents of my nieces on their first snowboarding experience. Don’t try this at home folks. The face plant at the end is priceless.
I believe in rewarding companies that go out of their way to care about the people who are supporting them (e.g, buying their products and keeping them in business). I also believe in giving companies who aren’t quite up to par a second chance to do what’s right. If they don’t, then I believe in letting the entire universe know about my experience and letting the market decide if they want to keep that company in business.
Smiles and Kudos
I’ll start with a great example. The JW Marriot in Palm Springs just absolutely WOW’d me. From the moment I stepped into the hotel, nice employees were engaging me with smiles and helping me get where I needed to go. I spent a few days there last month and everyone—from the check-in manager to the guy who delivered my room service, to a maintenance guy at the pool—were ALL superb in their communications with guests. Even when some guests weren’t following the rules, the pool guy offered alternate solutions that showed initiative and friendly help. LOVE them! I have not seen that kind of service in a long time and I’ve stayed at enough four-star resorts and flea bags to know what’s good, what’s bad, and what’s excellent.
Poop and Pitch
So now on to the terrible. I’m sad about this because this is a company that I previously really liked. The Byer’s Choice company makes these unique Christmas carolers that I collect. This past year my parents bought me a caroler that I had just purchased so I ended up with two of the same kind. When I wrote to the company, the first response from them did not address the problem I was asking about—instead I got a curt note that was not personalized, not friendly, and not at all helpful. When I responded again to clarify my request, I got another impersonal, unfriendly, unhelpful answer. No salutation, no name of who was writing to me, and no effort. Their policy is that they only take back the caroler (within 30 days of purchase) if there was a receipt and then they could give a credit to the person who bought it. That doesn’t help me at all.
So, I thought maybe there was just an inexperienced person who responded or they had a bad day. My next and final attempt was to call directly. I got a guy who said the same thing. When I asked if there was a supervisor I could talk to, he said he was the customer service supervisor. When I asked if he was empowered to help me out, he repeated his company line again, “That is not something we normally do.” Okay, well how about doing something not normal? I tried to be nice and let him know that this was not a customer friendly policy and that I can’t understand why (if I had the packing slip and the original box and a caroler in its original packaging) that I couldn’t swap it for another one that was the same price. Nope, still no deal. He then went on to make it worse by asking me when it was bought. When I said some time before Christmas (again, it was a gift), he said they had a 30-day return policy. Thanks dude—now I have another reason to not ever buy from you again.
This company relies on people like me who collect these figures to keep them in business. It’s not a commodity and they aren’t cheap. I’m disappointed and will be telling my friends about the terrible customer service displayed by the Byers’ Choice company. Too bad, I hope it was worth it to them to lose my business and the business of anyone who sees and cares about all the reviews I will be leaving on the Internet about their customer service policies.
If you are a business owner in this day and age, why—when customers make purchases largely based on reviews by other customers—would you hold fast to a policy that is so strict and let’s be honest, unreasonably ridiculous?
From the Observation Deck 