You’ve been great, thank you. Hello? Can you hear me?
posted by: Nick Roman on 6/4/2010
I lost my favorite cardigan recently. Fret not, I’m not turning this blog into some manner of knitwear lost-and-found board, but it led to me having several interactions with staff from a UK retailer called Oasis. And that’s about customer service, and that IS (at least in part) what this blog is about.
So, existence justified, here’s what happened. I left a cardigan in a restaurant, and quickly established I wouldn’t be getting it back. So I decided to replace it. It was a few months since I’d bought it, but I’d recently noticed it in the sale rack of one of their branches (I hate that. Still, c’est la vie). I returned to Oasis and had a poke around, but there was no sign of it. I spoke to the staff who kindly checked the stock in the back room and then tried their stock system to locate it in another store. I left armed with the numbers of another branch that might have it, and of their garment location service.
I won’t bore you (as I did my friends) with the entire process I went through, but in total I spoke in person to staff at 2 branches, on the phone to 2 more, and via phone and e-mail to the garment location service. The upshot is that I was too late, and any remaining stock of my beloved cardigan had been shipped out to non-Oasis outlet stores. I took a deep breath, waited for my lower lip to stop trembling, and moved on with my life.
As I reflected though, it occurred to me that of the 8 or so members of Oasis staff I’d spoken to, all of them had been wonderful. True, they’d not been able to find the item I wanted, but they’d all tried their best, been sympathetic, and made suggestions of where else I might look. And none of them had given me the sense that they were quietly thinking “It’s a cardigan! Get over it, you mad wench!” I decided to send some feedback centrally to Oasis to explain how good everyone had been, and that could potentially be passed on to the people in question.
I’ve just visited the Web site, and there isn’t a way to do it. I can (and intend to) e-mail their customer services address, but there’s a note saying they’re really busy and responses to enquiries may take 4–5 days. It’s not an enquiry so I’m not really e-mailing the right team, and if they’re that busy, I doubt that my feedback will get through. I’m going to do it anyway, but I’d like to see companies offeri a “Got feedback?” option on their sites. Receiving positive feedback is hugely engaging for employees, and helps to develop a customer-focused culture, so don’t make it hard for people to tell you they’re happy.
I’ll let you know if I hear back. Or ever find that cardy...