"Thanks!" to Kate who shared a post over at the Consumerist (click here to read in its entirety) about how J.Crew made one customer a very happy one.J.Crew Replaces Dress Stained In Kindergarten Marker MishapThat is a great ending to the story! As much as I complain, I think J.Crew does a wonderful job in general of making their customers happy.
By Laura Northrup
May 13, 2011
Some of the stories of good customer service that we post are simply tales of good customer service executed by competent employees. These deserve praise, but don't compare to true "Above and Beyond" consumer experiences. That's what Jeremy's family experienced from J.Crew after a terrible fate befell their daughter's new dress (not pictured.) They called the store to see whether the dress was in stock so they could buy a replacement. Instead, J.Crew stunned the family by exchanging the damaged dress for a new one at no charge.
"My wife recently visited a J.Crew store at [redacted] Mall in [redacted], NC and purchased a $40 dress for my 6 year old daughter. My daughter loved the dress, my wife loved the dress, everyone was happy! The next day, my daughter wears it to Kindergarten (she is very good at keeping her clothes clean and she often wears nicer outfits to school). We had no worries about it. That is, until she came home and had a large black stain on the front of the dress. The culprit: permanent marker from a fellow student.
My wife was devastated at the damage caused to such a nice dress, and I was just as devastated over the loss of $40. She attempted to scrub the marker out to no avail. By this time, we had already thrown away the receipt and thought we had no options but to purchase the same dress again, that's how much my wife loved it. Since the mall is a good 30 minutes from us, she called J.Crew to make sure they had the dress in stock. During the conversation with the woman on the phone, my wife explained what had happened with the marker and why she was visiting the store again. Much to our surprise, they offered to exchange the dress completely free of charge, no receipt required. They even offered to ship us the dress if her size was no longer available in stock.
My wife visited the store, she found the dress in my daughter's size, and the employee was incredibly helpful and kind throughout the whole situation. I couldn't be more happy at saving an additional $40, and my wife couldn't be happier with having our daughter's favorite dress back. I thought this was such an extraordinary example of a store going above and beyond to make the customer happy. And happy we are!"
Excellent work, J.Crew. And let this be an important public service announcement: keep permanent markers out of the hands of kindergarteners.
What are your thought on the story? Did you like or dislike the way J.Crew handled the situation? Please share! :)
I think that was a nice gesture on J.Crew's part.
ReplyDeleteOnce when my daughter was a toddler, she drew all over her new Nordstrom tennis shoes with marker. Nordstrom offered to replace the shoes and I was very thankful.
I just gotta ask though...who would send a kid to Kindergarten with clothes that a parent would worry about getting stained?...
Nice story and I'm glad it worked out for the family. I have two girls and I love to dress them up. However, I wouldn't send my daughter in her brand new Sunday dress to preschool. Even those washable paints don't come out so well. Now my daughter is old enough to ask her teacher for a smock come painting time. ;-)
ReplyDeleteITA with SE Mom and jcrewphd. :)
ReplyDeleteThat is so nice of JC. Now how come the SA's still give me the stink eye when I return something from final sale that arrived damaged?
ReplyDeleteGreat story but I also completely agree with SE Mom, jcrewphd, and FFM!
ReplyDeleteI totally do not know why a store would replace for free an item that you damaged on your own accord. Makes no sense. I wouldn't ever expect a store to do that.
ReplyDeleteIt seems a little bit random, more to do with that particular manager of that particular store than CS in general. It was a nice gesture but I don't think that you can expect a store to replace for free a garment that the customer ruined, unless it has something to do with the quality of the garment or instructions for care.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, clearly it wasn't the Crewcuts on Madison Avenue, they don't know what cs is...
I am sooo totally in agreement with everyone else who has commented here! And BTW where was the teacher? And why call JCrew? Why not call the parents of the kid who marked up the dress?
ReplyDeleteEma, "random" is exactly what I thought. Personally, I have received excellent customer service from J.Crew but we have all read comments here about terrible customer service too.
ReplyDeleteITA with the other posters regarding the decision to wear the brand new dress to school. And what on earth were they doing with permanent markers in kindergarten? If nothing else they should not be around those nasty marker fumes.
I agree with pathos.
ReplyDeleteYeah I didnt think it make sense if the customer damaged the garment herself, though it is nice to have it replaced free of charge. If the comp is si generous n customer friendly, how come they don't offer discounts on items that are clearly imperfect?
ReplyDeleteI hate to be a skeptic but this story seems planted by J. Crew's PR team. It was really nice of the customer service team to exchange the dress but if they paid with a credit card, they were probably able to look up the transaction via the card. So the "no receipt" part of the story is a little misleading without clarification of how they looked up the transaction. Also, why call J. Crew if a fellow student ruined the dress? Why not call the parents? I mean, I'm glad this family felt taken care of but JCA know customer service is often inconsistent.
ReplyDeleteWow, that was amazingly nice of JC. It wasn't their fault the dress was stained with permanent marker.
ReplyDeleteA total PR stunt. So if something has a "no return" policy and was made poorly, I guess we can just spill paint on ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI can imagine this could get j.crew more than a black mark. Where do you draw the line?
Huh, I never thought to call the furniture store after my daughter wrote on our brand new leather couch with a Sharpie. (I have a love/hate relationship with those markers.)
ReplyDeleteThat's a strange story. I agree with other JCAs. Although it is very nice (and surprising) that J.Crew would replace the child's dress, it would be great if they allowed some flexibility to return online purchases for fit or quality issues instead of enforcing their "Final Sale" policy.
Aww I wish that would happen to me when I snag a sweater.. ;)
ReplyDeleteFrom "devastated" to "stunned." Total PR. They have a long way to go. Starting w/putting the return policy on the back of the receipt.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see these comments. They way I look at it: every freebie to a customer is paid for by the rest of us. I cannot imagine why the store offered to replace the dress for free.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the deal with the items from the clearance centers? Why does some eBay sellers have lines through the jcrew tags? Some say to prevent store returns, but some items are several seasons old, so I just don't get it. Are items from the clearance centers of poor quality? I am just curious. Thanks!
ReplyDelete