I admit I’m like the plumber with leaks but, unfortunately sometimes we marketing folks don’t have time to tend to their own chores. It’s the old “do as I say, not as I do” adage.
But, if you’ve dropped by when I HAVE taken the time to write, you know that I am B-I-G on customer service. (So much so that a recent guest blog post of mine at {grow} was centered around companies who do and don’t listen.) If you get it wrong, I will call you out and if you do it right, I will sing your praises to anyone who listens.
This is such a story. It’s a long one, but it shows amazing customer service and companies who are listening.
It is a story of a tradition, a pig and a goof. All 3 of which belong to me. Every 
year our family joins with our besties in hosting a rather large pig roast for our friends. A few years ago we added themes and logos to the mix and this year was no exception. A good friend of ours designed the logo, bestie cleaned it up and voila! We have the Pig in Zen 2010 look. I go to my favorite POD (print on demand) site – Zazzle and place an order for the family to have similar (but not matching..that’s just weird) shirts. 10 days til the party.. figure no problem.
Flash forward to this past Thursday at approximately 2:20 pm – Einstein here figures it would be a good idea to check the tracking of the shirts and make sure that they were on time for delivery from our friends at UPS. And that’s when I realized that my shirts that I’d ordered for a party on Saturday were scheduled to arrive on Monday.
Oh crap.
I send a text to my husband, commiserate on Facebook and then tweet out a little vent on Twitter. Didn’t ask for help. Didn’t really complain – just frustrated at myself. Within 20 minutes, the following messages ensue:
zazzle @KristenDaukas Have you already contacted our support team about this issue?
Me: @zazzle It’s not you.. Out of your hands..I never thought it would take 10 days to get here. Only @UPS can help me now. Or Santa.
zazzle @KristenDaukas Well, it can’t hurt to try! Shoot an email w/details: http://bit.ly/11XytN
UPS @KristenDaukas Let’s see if we can help. Please send your contact info + tracking # to twitter@ups.com.
Me: @UPS You will be my hero if I get these shirts in time for my party on sat. Sending info now. ( I scurry off to send requested info while crossing all fingers and toes.. )
What happened after that was nothing short of AMAZING customer service. I get a phone call from Chris Coleman (@ChrisatUPS) in the Corporate Customer Relations department of UPS who listens to what happened. He then asks if I think we can get new shirts from Zazzle printed up and shipped overnight to me – at UPS’ expense. As much as I want the shirts and as important as they are to me, I couldn’t possibly think that UPS should take on that big of a cost. It wasn’t 
the fault of Zazzle or UPS that I didn’t have my shirts.. I simply hadn’t opted to have the shirts expedited to me.
Dear @UPS and @zazzle you guys rock. I hope we can rescue the package but if not, you have shown amazing #custsvc today.
But that is exactly what Chris does. He gets in touch with Selena at Zazzle and they reprint our shirts and overnight them to me. They end up arriving about 24 hours after I had sent the first tweet. UPS and Zazzle – if you read this – those two folks deserve some major back slapping from the powers that be. Lunch would be nice, too.
I didn’t yell. I never asked them to replace the shirts. UPS and Zazzle chose to do the right thing for their customer. I am a small business. I do 99% of my work online.. I don’t ship a lot. They really had no reason to go over and above the call of service. But they both did.
Guess who my chosen shipping provider is going to be moving forward? Guess who I will continue to use for my POD (print on demand) needs?
Catch 22 
Yeah, I could have told ya about their customer service. Zazzle unfortunately has had to scale back in recent years, but they still are rocking it hard in the Bay area. I’ve always also preferred UPS. They always ship the package when it’s supposed to get there. Not early, not late. And they’ve always tried to help me out. Amusingly, Zazzle and UPS probably fall into medium and major corporation sizes. So you have all of the representation (small, med, large).
Glad to hear you got those shirts!
I became a fan of Zazzle with my wicked cool business cards ;). Maybe I’m just tainted but it seems so rare when anyone goes out of their way to help anymore. When it happens – I think it’s worthy of a shout out. Folks always take to the airwaves to complain but never follow up on their promise to “write a letter to the boss” to applaud good service.
What? You didn’t MOO them (business cards)? commme on!
That’s the one thing that I’ve learned in the telecom industry for the past decade. And working IT. Customer service is tough, but it can be done. It’s one of the few things that I try to push really hard on for Merchant’s Mirror. lol.
This is an awesome story! Hurray for you. I’m glad your guest post became a prophecy of better things to come!
PS How do I share this post? I don;t see the button! Could be my eyesight. That is always a possibility!
Thanks Mark!! Like I said.. so many people gripe – not enough applaud. I just hope TPTB (the powers that be) at each of these companies will give these folks some kudos.
PS.. sorry about that.. it should be there now 😉
Thanks for the praise – we think @ChrisAtUPS is terrific too! We ♥ small businesses (just like we ♥ logistics) and we’re glad we could lend a hand.
Cheers,
Debbie Curtis-Magley
UPS Public Relations
Debbie – I’m glad you agree 🙂 You honestly have no idea how he and Zazzle made my day. I have told that story umpteen times since then. I had folks coming up to me at the party asking if “those were the shirts from the story”. Thanks to all of you, again!
Good #custsrv story Kristen. Thanks for sharing.