We enjoy delighting first-time customers. We take pride when customers come back to us to reorder or to discuss new ideas. But we are thrilled when a customer returns to us after having tried another vendor and then discovered that service is not the same everywhere.
We recently had a customer call us with a problem. She had used us once last year for jackets for her company’s drivers. She had an event coming up quickly and wanted 35 staffers outfitted in company logo wear. She reported that she had tried to order from another vendor, thought she was buying embroidered shirts, then opened the boxes to discover that the shirts were blank, and she needed shirts embroidered within days. Here is where some companies cannot react quickly or want to rake in massive rush charges. Our view was that we had a golden opportunity to win a customer for life.
We looked at our production schedule and found a way to fit this customer in. The customer got her shirts in time and we didn’t try to rake our customer over the coals. When I called the next week to follow-up, she thanked me and said, “We’re never using anyone else again.” She was delighted to learn that we also offer screen printing. We have an appointment scheduled next week to discuss how to deepen the relationship and make future orders even easier for her to manage and place.