Yesterday, I wrote a post about how it pays to check your monthly bills for errors. Keeping vigilant can wind up saving you large sums of money.
Today’s post is similar in nature: standing up for your rights as a consumer when a product you’ve purchased breaks or doesn’t perform as it should.
It’s fairly easy to demand customer satisfaction when the product in question is a big-ticket item. But when the item is less expensive, I think there’s a tendency to simply toss it rather than take the time to complain.
In my case, I recently bought a package of Hanes brand panties. After just one washing, one pair came out of the laundry with the stitching unraveled. Apparently, it wasn’t sewn properly.
I resisted the urge to simply toss the one bad pair and turned my annoyance into action, calling the 800 number for Hanes — determined to get my pair of undies replaced.
A well-trained customer service agent took my information and before I could even request my replacement pair, she surprised me. Not only is Hanes replacing my ripped pair of panties, the company is sending me six pairs and an apology.
I hung up the phone all warm and fuzzy about Hanes underwear. I’ve told several friends about what happened and now I’ve written this post. It’s amazing how a simple apology and a package of underwear can buy a company so much goodwill. I wonder why some companies find this such a difficult lesson to learn.
Do you have any stories about stellar customer service? Or better yet, let’s here the dirt on any tales of customer disservice, as Clark Howard loves to say.
3 responses so far ↓
1 carolyn // Jun 23, 2009 at 3:27 pm
I recently purchased a new cracker product for $1 from Nabisco with a coupon, of course, and did not care for the taste at all and threw them away. I thought maybe they’d want to know my opinion on their new product. I called and not only were they happy to receive my opinion on their new product they MORE THAN replaced the product with a coupon for ANY Nabisco product up to $4.50.
2 Amy Dunn // Jun 23, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Well worth standing up for your consumer rights!
3 MiserMary // Jun 24, 2009 at 1:12 pm
My daughter’s panties just unraveled after only two washings. I am going to contact Fruit of the Loom straight away & will keep you posted…
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