a word on customer service

You won't find any argument from me about the fact that customer service in the past several years has gone down the toilet. Cashiers talk about other cashiers in front of customers, or yell over to so-and-so about when they're taking their break.

Two weeks ago, I brought a tub of yogurt back to the grocery store because it was overdue when I bought it and mentioned to the guy in the dairy department that it was the second time I purchased something overdue (the first was over Christmas when my husband unknowingly bought a tub of ricotta that was a month overdue - we didn't realize until we were eating our lasagna) - and he just looked at me with a blank face like he was staring at a wall. Hello? Are ya there? I'm speaking to you??

I know I should check the dates but come on - I'm in a hurry!

All that being said, in the weeks since my yogurt debacle, I've had some pretty great customer service that I wanted to share.

Spoonflower

When I bought the orange fabric for my living room pillows, I also bought a darker fabric to use for a smaller accent pillow, only when I washed it, it came out with creases and lines all through the fabic and I couldn't really use it. I let it go just because I tend to forget about things like that.

Time went on. I wanted to get sewing again and ordered a bunch of fabric again as I mentioned here. But after I washed it, the fabric came out creased and lined again. I was pretty frustrated because I wanted to use this fabric for my etsy shop and I felt I couldn't really use it on something I wanted to sell.

I decided to take a chance and email them about my issue to see if there had been other complaints. There had and the woman who emailed me back suggested I take my fabric out of the dryer asap to prevent the creases as much as possible. Then she offered to ship me some new fabric, no questions asked. Really? Wow. I'm not talking about $5 of fabric either.

I couldn't believe how generous they were and how fast the turn-around was for getting the new fabric. This was an A+ for customer service in my books.

Zoli

I bought this sippy cup after a woman at my local diaper/children place told me it was the best thing since sliced bread. It was a pretty cool cup - Leo could drink from it upside down and still get milk. Plus it was pretty cute. Problems began however when he started to chew the straw. It started to leak all over the place and then it became a choking hazard when the top of the straw was close to falling off.

I emailed the company about my issue and they got back to me right away to let me know they would send me a new straw for the cup. Wow, thanks! Two-for-two!

I've decided to try three-for-three and contacted another company about a product I bought at the One of a Kind Show that broke before I used it so I'm waiting for the response still.

The lesson learned - just ask - you never know what you'll get!