Holiday Customer Service - Champs and Chumps

Holiday shopping is over, except for the after sales, returns and exchanges. I had a few interesting customer service experiences this year that left me with a list of Champs and Chumps to share. Fortunately for my gift recipients, they balanced themselves out.

CHUMP: WILLIAMS-SONOMA
I wanted to buy my husband a CO2 cartridge-charged whipping device to make gourmet foams. I thought I found what I needed at Williams-Sonoma. A manager at the store told me she was sure the product manufactured by iSi Group was the right choice. They were proven wrong, and I went back to W-S the next day to return the Mini-Whip.

CHAMP: iSi NORTH AMERICA
An email to iSi North America (http://www.isi-group.com/) was responded to within hours, and confirmed that I needed either their Gourmet Whip or their Thermo Whip to make culinary foams. They offered to send me a free recipe book if I decided to buy one of their whips. I used Google Shopping to search for a supplier, and placed my order with http://www.creamright.com/. iSi graciously sent me the recipe book for free – a product for sale online for $6.95. Nice!

CHUMP: THE CONTAINER STORE
Each year, The Container Store markets a batch of fun stocking stuffers. When I got the flyer in the mail, I headed to our local store to buy the Ninja Flash Drive. They were already sold out, advised that they wouldn’t be getting any more, and that they were also unavailable online. Sounds like the buyers should have purchased more, don’t you think? They failed to capitalize on a winner.

CHAMPS: AMAZON.COM and FIND-ME-A-GIFT-UK
A quick search of amazon.com yielded a supplier out of the UK (http://www.find-me-a-gift.co.uk/) that shipped the Ninja Flash Drive to me at a good price in time for Christmas.

CHUMP: GOLFSMITH.COM
Golfsmith has recently been having serious issues with inventory management and customer service. My husband ordered himself a used club back in October. After months of waiting and one phone call that yielded little information (“We don’t know when it will be available”), we got an email they the club was no longer available from the manufacturer. They sent a $25 voucher that could be used on http://www.golfsmith.com/ for almost anything but the brand of club my husband wants.

CHAMP: GOLFSMITH.COM
I sent feedback on Golfsmith’s failure to deliver, our lost confidence in ordering from them online, and our opinions on their inappropriate/ insufficient response. They came through by apologizing candidly for the challenges they are experiencing, and provided an additional $25 gift card that can be used for anything they sell. I have to give them credit for making it right.