Last week I talked about this horrific customer service experience I had. In light of that, I thought I would share this positive story. 

A week ago, my wonderful nanny Kelly, went into our local independent pet store to buy our puppy dog food.  They don't typically carry this food, but order it for us when they are out of it.  She went on a Friday and was told they would get it by Monday, Tuesday at the latest.  She returned on Tuesday afternoon, to be told that they forgot to order it and would definitely have it by Thursday afternoon.  Thursday afternoon she returned, to be told that they actually wouldn't have it until Friday afternoon, but as we had run out of food that morning, we had nothing to feed our pup, and as those of you who have pets know, you can't change food without a weaning process.

When Kelly let me know the situation, I called the store to speak to the owner.  The owner, Cheryl, wasn't there, but her sales representative, Cynthia, took my call.  Here is what I told her:

I love to support my local independent retailers and thus I love to support you.  I have always enjoyed a relationship with Cheryl, but based on this experience I was short of never shopping in the store again.  However, before making this decision I wanted them to understand my frustration, so that maybe they could help me understand the situation as well as help find a solution to the fact that I had nothing to feed my puppy that night and the next morning. 

In addition, I discussed my unhappiness that with gas prices as high as they are, having to make a fourth trip to their store was an additional cost factor that I wasn't pleased about. 

Cynthia respectively listened to my entire saga, at which point she agreed that they had not handled the situation properly, thanked me for sharing my concerns versus just not patronizing their store again and asked that I give her 45 minutes at which point she would get back to me with a solution.  Within 45 minutes she called back and by 5:30 that afternoon, she had the food at their store for us to pick up. 

We all recognize that mistakes happen, but it is how you deal with them that either ‘buys' you a customer for life or turns your customer into that of your competitor.