Ramblings of the Mad Cow

I’m usually complaining about how these days customer service is a lost art, but today I saw a wonderful example of someone actually trying to please me, the customer. I shop at our local Kroger and while they have a good selection of soy milks and cheeses, they’re lacking with other vegan staples like egg replacer for backing and vegan mayo. They have an online system where through a “speciality store” you can request special items and if they can get it they’ll send it to your local store. So I filled out the request form online and got back a reply saying that they would look for these items and contact me, and the process usually takes 5 business days. That was on December 3rd. I haven’t heard a thing.

So last week I call and give the man that answered the phone my request numbers and he looks them up and says they’re still being processed and I’ll have an answer by the end of the week. Nothing. So yesterday I call, and the woman that answered didn’t even want to look them up, she just said that it takes at least 10 days and when I pointed out that it had already been longer than that she told me to wait 4 more and call back. Frustrated, I went back to kroger.com and fill out a customer service form. And today I got this:

Dear Chris:

Thank you for contacting the Kroger company. We apologize for the store not responding to your requests. Our specialty store is actually an outside company, though they are operating under the auspices of our Kroger name. That being said, if they are not functioning properly, it appears as if we are not functioning properly. Please let me know what products you are looking for and at what Kroger location you shop at most and I would be more than happy to see if the store can stock the item or special order it for you. The only time we cannot get an item for you is if it is unavailable in the warehouse. Please respond at your convenience.

Sincerely,

Rob
Consumer Affairs

Rob here is my new best friend. And he’s definitely reaffirmed my belief in companies that do value customers. I’m going to keep shopping at Kroger, thanks in large part to folks like Rob.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 11:07 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.