{"id":2867,"date":"2009-05-14T12:58:51","date_gmt":"2009-05-14T19:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lee.org\/blog\/?p=2867"},"modified":"2009-05-14T12:58:51","modified_gmt":"2009-05-14T19:58:51","slug":"fantastic-customer-service-ben-and-jerrys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/2009\/05\/14\/fantastic-customer-service-ben-and-jerrys\/","title":{"rendered":"Fantastic Customer Service: Ben and Jerry’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charlotte and I had a bad pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream a little while back. From my letter:<\/p>\n

On about 4-15-09 my girlfriend and I bought a pint of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough at the convenience store at…<\/p>\n

We found that it had less chocolate chips and cookie dough than we\u2019ve had in the past. We weren\u2019t very happy with it.<\/p>\n

We know that you make a fine product and this was probably an anomaly but we thought you should know.<\/p>\n

Thank you…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I included a photo of the ice cream we ate.<\/p>\n

Last week I got back this letter.
\n\"ben-jerry-customer-service-letter\"<\/a><\/p>\n

…and Annie (from the letter) included 2 coupons a free pint of Ben and Jerry’s and a $0.55 coupon off any Ben and Jerry’s product.<\/p>\n

This is a fabulous letter. Why? Because it turns a problem into an opportunity for them to make me into a customer for life.<\/p>\n

Let me count the ways:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The letter is signed, in ink, from a real person. That makes everything personal.<\/li>\n
  2. The first thing Annie did was acknowledge the problem. (I might have opened with a brief apology but their approach works too)<\/li>\n
  3. It looks like Annie actually read my letter. She mentioned my problem directly. This wasn’t a form letter.<\/li>\n
  4. They made amends, not just with a replacement but a second coupon to ease me back into paying money for ice cream. It’s a \u00a0110% guarantee. Nice!<\/li>\n
  5. The letterhead shows their excellent branding, the design all the way around the edge of the sheet is fun and welcoming.<\/li>\n
  6. She told me that my information was being forwarded to Quality Assurance. This makes me feel like my letter will actually be productive and help them make a better product. Since I obviously care enough to write a letter, I appreciate helping to make the thing I love better.<\/li>\n
  7. They put their phone number, web site and mailing address at the bottom. They obviously don’t mind if I call again… the communication channel is open. They like me. They really like me.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This is the kind of stuff I have read about in Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point”.<\/p>\n

    Ben and Jerry’s has great customer service. I should remind you, the reader that Ben and Jerry’s is owned by Unilever, a multi-national conglomerate with 174,000 employees. They are, by some accounts “a big evil corporation”. Well darn it if we don’t need more of them!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Charlotte and I had a bad pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream a little while back. From my letter: On about 4-15-09 my girlfriend and I bought a pint of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough at the convenience store at… We found that it had less chocolate chips and cookie dough than we\u2019ve had in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-product-recommendations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lee.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}