Meanwhile Back at the Ranch

My wife recently purchased a toy refrigerator as a second birthday present for our daughter.

It was your basic Made in China special…some assembly required. But I’m pleased to report that I was able to put the thing together in a little bit less than an hour and without cursing.

When it was all done, the handles on the refrigerator and freezer doors didn’t quite line up, but other than that, it was a good-looking piece of miniature furniture, and our little one loves playing in her new kitchen.

A short time later, Alison received an e-mail asking if she wouldn’t mind writing a review on the product. She was happy to oblige and here’s her review, in which she gave the fridge four stars out of five.

Yesterday, she received the following e-mail:

Hi Alison,

Thank you so much for your recent online review of our white refrigerator. I’m so sorry to read about the problems that you had with the doors and would really like to help make things right. If you are open to exchanging the refrigerator for a new one, I would be more than happy to facilitate that for you. Or, if you’d rather not go through the exchange process, is there something else I can do to help? We all feel badly that your fridge is not working perfectly.

I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this may be causing. We appreciate your business and the time you spent submitting your thoughtful review. If there’s anything I can do to help with your refrigerator, or anything else, please let me know.

Best wishes,

Melissa Bolton
The Land of Nod
800-933-9904 x762
melissa.bolton@landofnod.com

You gotta applaud an outfit that uses technology to not only engage its customers in helping to influence other potential customers, but also offers up an “above and beyond” response when the customer is not 100-percent pleased.

I’ve used up a lot of oxygen in the past few years speaking on the topic of how technology is a tool best used to connect one person to another, and not a lazy man’s substitute for an actual person-to-person interaction.

You can bet that we’ll be buying more stuff from The Land of Nod in the years to come.