Ever wonder if in the age of the internet, the role of customer service matters? I did a little experiment a few months ago–mainly I was irritated beyond belief at my ex-favorite store, Alabama Outdoors. I had what was one of those classic bad experiences with two–not one, but TWO–defective pairs of Grammici shorts. I went to return them, wanting simply to exchange them for a batch that were of a higher quality. I didn’t know then what I know now: that Grammici pants went WAY down in quality very, very quickly. Anyway, I went in to exchange the shorts and was told that I wouldn’t be able to do that. Instead, they would send them away to be repaired. Mind you, the shorts were brand new. One pair had been worn for one day and washed. The other pair had only been worn for about 45 minutes. I was livid.
So what did I do? I came home, sent an email (that they never bothered to reply to) and steamed. I was frustrated, so I blogged about my bad experience. (You can read my posts about my experience with Alabama Outdoors in this link) And I blogged again, mentioning Alabama Outdoors with some degree of regularity. I provided a link to their website: www.alabamaoutdoors.com. I referenced outdoor clothing and Alabama and outdoors with some frequency.
Several weeks later, I went and picked up my “new and improved” shorts. The exact same thing happened again. I called them, livid again, and this time the person I talked with was very polite and apologetic. I brought these shorts back as well and exchanged them for cash back. I consider the issue settled and no longer have very hard feelings towards AO (Alabama Outdoors).
Why relive this experience again? Mainly to prove a point. It has been nearly a year since this happened (May 2008 or so). It is only in the last month or so that my article didn’t appear very near the top of the search engine findings for Alabama Outdoors. So always treat your customers with respect–and realize that every dissatisfied customer has the potential to really hammer you on the web–and reach more people than ever before possible. Customer service is critical, as much now as ever before.
