Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Cheers for World Market

Seth Godin and Consumerist have been writing a lot about customer service. Seth Godin takes the perspective that today's underpaid, untrained staffers are ill prepared to deal with I've-been-taken-advantage-of-so-fix-it-now consumers. The kind of consumers who have educated themselves online using websites like Consumerist. Consumerist has built a loyal following by outing corporations' sleazy policies and publishing the direct phone lines and email addresses of company presidents.

So I'd like to counter all of the online negativity with a positive customer service story about World Market. As I've mentioned on this blog, Josh and I have been searching for ways to contain our toddler's clutter while not letting our living space turn into a plastic play land.
We've stashed smaller toys in these brown leather storage ottomans from Overstock.com, but we needed a place to hide Z's larger playthings: a basket of books, a barn, a vintage Little People house, etc.

And we found it in this lovely cabinet from World Market. We stopped into the store on Sunday, but couldn't fit the furniture into our car with Z still in the back seat. So we asked a store employee to put it on hold for us until Tuesday. Josh returned to the store, CR-V cargo space at the ready, paid for the furniture, and drove it home.



Once he'd unwrapped it, he discovered a long crack down the back, hidden part of the cabinet and called me for advice. He didn't really want to wrap it up and drive it back for an exchange, and he stressed that it was hard to see the crack unless the doors were open and the toys were out. So I suggested he call the store and ask for an additional 20% "damaged goods" discount. If they weren't willing to accommodate, we'd bring the cabinet it to exchange it. Sensing a difficult call with a front line cashier, I also stressed that he should ask for a manager right away.

Well, low and behold, the manager trusted us and gave us the requested credit!



As you can see, Z's toys fit perfectly. And the cabinet fits our decor perfectly! Go World Market!