pegkerr | A letter to customer service

I sent the following email to the customer service contact for the Caribou Coffee website:

I just wanted to send a note of appreciation about the friendliness of the counterpeople working at this particular Caribou.

This coffee shop is right next door to a karate studio, which has several hundred students who attend classes there each week--I believe it's actually the largest National Karate studio in the franchise in Minneapolis. I have been taking my two daughters there for classes for four years and taking classes myself. I have bought many a cup of coffee to take next door while I've sat to watch my daughters taking a class. But what particularly prompts me to write is this:

Karate classes can be very strenuous, and the students come out terrible thirsty! There is a water machine in the karate studio where water costs $1, but many students choose instead to go next door to Caribou where they request a cup of ice water.

In the four years that we've come to your store to beg for water, the Caribou staff have ALWAYS been unfailingly cheerful and polite about these requests. Sometimes there is a water dispenser set up with cups beside it, but if there isn't, and if the students ask at the counter, they are never turned away, no matter how busy the store is, and I have NEVER seen even the slightest hint of annoyance on the part of any employee over a request that they must get many, many times a day.

Your people are UNFAILINGLY friendly and courteous, even to people who are (at that moment) not actually buying anything but simply asking for a favor. You had better believe that has made a very positive impression. I feel warmly welcomed every time I step into the store.

Thank you.

I just got a nice email back from the customer relations department, thanking me for sending the note, and saying they'd pass on the praise to the store and the district manager. I know that there are several communities on LiveJournal where people complain either about lousy customers or lousy shopping experiences.

It's easy to complain when things go wrong. Tell me instead about a business that you like to patronize because they really impress you. Have you ever taken the trouble to thank them for it?

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I sent my favorite professor from college a letter a few years ago letting him know how important he was to me and how much he influenced me. I thanked him for setting such a great example for me to follow of what a professor should be.

He passed away earlier this year and his wife made a point of coming to talk to me after the memorial service to let me know how much he had appreciated that letter.

Now, mind you, about six years earlier I wrote letters and did the whole bit to make sure he won an important teaching award at the school and insisted he come to the ceremony for it, but she said that letter was more important to him.

I know it's not quite customer service, but there you are.

this reminds me of the day after I graduated from high school... I drove around the suburb of St. Louis dropping off letters to my various favorite teachers...

1st grade...Mrs. Fall... taught me how to stay in my seat; but only gently scolded and never criticized... later learned I had a hearing problem which was the problem...Mrs. Fall was integral in figuring that out

4th grade... Mrs. Morse... taught me how to LOVE books, not just read them
6th grade... Mrs. Sirota... who gave me a maxi pad when my period started (really started) unexpectedly in the middle of orchestra
7th grade...Mr. Betts...a crotchety old man... who loved EACH of his students...even me...a c-student in his class, but no matter
7th grade...Mrs. Tinucci... I was placed in her "regular" English class after getting a C in "Advanced English".. She made me feel like a genius
6th grade, 10-12...Mrs. Rogers... My choir teacher. She began teaching at my elementary school as the music teacher the year after she graduated. You know... recorders, triangles, etc. And then she was "promoted" to the choir director of my high school (and I was THAT kid...choir, musicals, show choir). And, man o man, she made a difference in my life. Smart, funny, challenging, honest.
...
anyway

I dropped off hand-written letters to each of them the day after I graduated...no easy feat since I was awake until 6:30 a.m. watching the sun rise with people I barely remember now. But I still remember those teachers.

A letter to customer service

no subject

oh yeah...