If you've ever read Raving Fans (and if you haven't, you should!), you may remember the story about the customer wanting a book the store didn't have. I won't give away the story, but the [obvious] answer is that the customer received such excellent service that he became a raving fan of the store.
Well, Luann Richardson and her excellent team at the Perimeter Church Bookstore recently gave me some rather amazing service. But I have to give a little background first.
Background part 1: I'm a huge fan of the TV Series House. (It's about the only TV show I watch) When I heard that the second season was about to be released, I let my wife know that I was interested and it would be a great, late, birthday present.
Background part 2: The Perimeter Bookstore routinely gives great service, but one bit of "above and beyond" they regularly do is to challenge the church staff. Any time we're looking for a book, or CD, or DVD, or whatever else might come from one of their distributors, they ask for "first chance" to supply it. Usually they can offer about the same price as Amazon, but without shipping charges -- I can simply walk into the bookstore and pick it up.
Background part 3: At the time I asked my wife about the DVD, Luann was pregnant. Very pregnant. An is any-day-now pregnant. Keep in mind, the DVD hadn't been released yet, so Luann couldn't provide it even if she wanted to.
Now, back to the story. You can probably see where this is going. About the time the DVD became available, Luann became slightly distracted giving birth to a beautiful little girl, Tess. Somehow, in that distraction, she failed to order the DVD. (If you know Luann, you know that really is surprising, even though she was a bit busy) It's also important to mention that my wife had let Luann know there was no hurry on this DVD. I was interested in it, but I'd still be interested at Christmas, or our anniversary, or my next birthday, or whenever. So not having the DVD the minute it was released didn't really matter. Plus, she was ordering it as a surprise -- I didn't even know she'd ordered it.
Finally my wife explained the whole thing, and about a week ago, I casually mentioned it to Lee Jones, another amazing bookstore person. Of course, he jumped right in to make sure House had been ordered, or if not, he'd order it, or somehow he'd take care of everything. Now remember, there was NO urgency in this whatsoever, I had all the time in the world. There was not any problem with the DVD not being instantly available. There wouldn't have been any problem if the bookstore had told me they couldn't get it. But...not the Perimeter Bookstore...a commitment made is a commitment fulfilled. Lee made the order and I figured it would arrive a few days later. All is fine.
Then Wednesday I received a very unusual voice mail from Luann! She apologized profusely for the DVD being so late and said that she had it at home and would personally deliver it. Besides there still being no urgency, I was trying to figure why she had the package at home. She doesn't receive bookstore shipments at her house. There's only one logical explanation -- Luann, with her new baby only a few days old, had gone to a local store and purchased it to fulfill her wonderful customer service expectations.
I was in an all-afternoon meeting Friday. When I came back to my office, there was a package propped on the door handle.
A handwritten note was tucked in the handle:
"Tony,
This item was meant to be gift wrapped and hand delivered to you based on our customer service standards.
We hope that you enjoy this item and can forgive the lack of a personal greater, as we have delivered the parcel to you at a time when you were away from your desk.
Sincerely,
The Bookstore Management"
There was also a tag on the package indicating it was to me, from my wife, with hearts drawn on it. (I can tell it's not really my wife's handwriting, but it's amazingly close!)
You know, Amazon can give pretty good service, but nothing will every rate as high as this little gift package. Luann, Lee, Chrystie, and whoever else was involved in this little caper, you are AMAZING.
This actually turned into such a great story that I didn't even open the package yesterday. I had to make sure I'd captured enough of the details to recount the whole experience. I'm going to enjoy watching this. Especially as I remember the story behind the story :-)
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