Saturday, August 24, 2013

#449 a heel

When I was on vacation, I found a really cute pair of shoes at the Naturalizer outlet.  They did not have my size, but they cheerfully offered to order them for me and ship them for free.  I was delighted.

It turns out that these shoes were not only cute, but comfortable.  And as a bonus, they come in a whole spectrum of colors.  I decided that I wanted another pair, so I called up the outlet to see if they had them in my size.  They did!  Then I asked that they be shipped to me (at my expense), but was told no; they did not take phone orders. If they did not have my size, they couldn't take a phone order either, but would then be willing to order it and ship it to me for free if I came in the store in person.  Really?  In 2013?

I explained that I lived several hours away, but they were unbudging.  My dear sister happened to be near the outlet over the weekend, so I pleaded with her to drag her two small children into the outlet-mall-back-to-school-madness to buy these stupid shoes. I am grateful that she did, but I am sure that the cute and comfortable shoes will now have a tinge of annoyance instead of glee embedded in the insoles.

I wonder whether this was an uninformed clerk that imposed this policy or whether it is corporate policy to operate with wanton disregard of service.  You may want to have a stealth customer test out some of your rules and see if you are doing something that is so unknowingly aggravating to your client base.

-- beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

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