I know, there are plenty of places to buy furniture in south-east Idaho. But I’d like to talk about one company that I will always go back to. And no, this isn’t a paid post. I’m really a big fan.
When my wife and I were engaged, we were looking for a mattress for our new apartment. We looked all around Idaho Falls. I even remember calling a few places in Pocatello to get prices (one we knew what we wanted). I remember visiting Furniture Row near Edward’s Theater. They had a lot of nice stuff, but their employees were super rude. We didn’t feel welcome at all. And I won’t go to Odell’s because their ads are obnoxious (”We’re closing early on Friday to get ready for our biggest sale ever on Saturday”… aired every other week)!
Then we went to Romaine’s. Romaine’s is this little cramped place in downtown Idaho Falls. (Okay, it’s actually huge inside but the layout is strange and so it appears to be very small until you start exploring.) They’ve got tons of great furniture. For some reason they call themselves a mattress store (technically they’re called Romaine’s Mattress King), but they’ve got so much other furniture that I think they should change their name.
We worked with Carey (who is also the owner). He helped us pick out our first mattress. He explained all about how mattresses are made and how to choose just the right one for your individual sleeping needs. On top of all that, he gave us a killer price (because it was our first mattress purchase…a kind of wedding gift I guess) and shipped it to our apartment 30 minutes away!
Here the best part though and the reason I thought it was worth writing about. After we’d been using the mattress for about a week, we realized that it was too soft for us. We both liked something a little firmer. I called up Carey and asked if they had a policy for this type of thing. He said, “I’ll send you a firmer one.” Low and behold, a day later, the shipping guys showed up to take our old mattress and drop off a new (more expensive) one…at no cost. We’ve been sleeping better ever since.
So why did I write this post? Well, this blog is (supposed to be) all about how to improve your company’s marketing. And I can’t think of a better marketing strategy than making your customers happy. Romaine’s went well beyond the call of duty to help us find a mattress that would work best for us. And for that, we’ll always go back.
5 responses so far ↓
RudyV. // December 15, 2007 at 10:03 pm |
nice post.
One of the distinctions I have been working on of late is the fine line between our quest for customer satisfaction and our need not to be responsible and accountable. In no way am I judging you, (I had the same difficulty and the same results from 1-800-matress) as you did. I was happy about it as well. However, I have been thinking that in great part, what call custoemr satisfaction, is the willingness of a company to liberate us from our decisions and take on the responsibility and the cost for our poor judgements, changes of heart, or innability to convice our spouse, we really did need a 58 inch plasma. When a company is not willing to allow us to use and return, we say that they are not customer focused. What do we think happens with that mattress we used for a week? your next door neighbor is buying it next week.
Customer Satisfaction Requires Mutual Respect « Xtreme Customer Satisfaction // December 19, 2007 at 2:51 pm |
[...] Customer Satisfaction Requires Mutual Respect I recently read a posting that solidified some forming thoughts. here. [...]
Ryan // January 2, 2008 at 12:54 pm |
Rudy, I appreciate your comment and couldn’t agree more. Companies shouldn’t be expected to provide this level of service, it wouldn’t be fair. We as customers need to take responsibility for our unwise decisions (which we all make) too.
As a point of clarification: when we discovered that our mattress was too soft, I only called them to ask if they had any suggestions. They asked how many times it had been slept on (twice) and were the ones who suggested we trade it for another.
They also made sure we had had a good mattress pad over it and that there were no marks or stains on it. I’m sure they wouldn’t have accepted it if it was much older.
RudyV. // January 12, 2008 at 10:00 pm |
Ryan,
I just clicked on your link and got to your marketing site. Inthe spirit of making ourselves better and helping eachother be better, I have to ask strategy of your website’s main graphic.
As a marketing professional as well user of marketing services, I don’t find it compeling, unless you are a company specializing in fashion catalogue marketing.
Just a thought.
Rudy V
Ryan // January 25, 2008 at 10:00 am |
RudyV, thanks for your professional criticism, that is a great question.
One thing I’ve learned through designing websites for nearly a decade, what you think will work and what actually does work are usually different. It’s so very important to A/B test everything you can.
I never would have guessed that such a vague image would work very well either but after much testing, that image seemed to have the best conversion rate.
Granted, it’s been a while since I’ve made any changes to the site and things may be different now, but apparently that image resonates with the audience I’m targeting.
If I could offer one free word of advice to anyone with an online business, it’s to never trust your gut (design-wise). There are wonderful tools available that will let you run tests and see what actually works in practice.