by Jan Schwartz

My Fave Pen

OK, this has nothing to do with online education or anything remotely resembling online education.  It’s about a rare and stupendous customer service experience I had yesterday.

My son bought me a Visconti pen for my birthday a couple of years ago and I’ve been having trouble finding refills for it here in Tucson.  One Hallmark store ordered the refills for me, after I took the pen in so they could see what I needed.  The wrong ones came in so they reordered and said they would call me.   That was in October.

I went online last Thursday and ordered them from Paradise Pen company where I had purchased the refills before, but in person and on the east coast.  Anyway, they came today. And they were the wrong ones–I ordered two.  I fired off an email and asked them how we could resolve this niggly issue and lo and behold I received a response within the hour from the store manager, Julie Ortega, who mailed the pens from her store in Las Vegas. Here is Julie’s email in part:

Explain to me what is going on when you try to put the refill in.  Is it that the refill does not protrude as much as it did with the fine liner?  Or will it not go into the end at all?  Let me know and we can go from there. We will solve this mystery!!!

So, I sent her a side-by-side picture of one of the refills she sent and the one in my pen right now.  And within 15 minutes I got this email back from her:

That was so my fault.  I grabbed the wrong refill out of the drawer!  I am so sorry.  I am sending out the correct ones today and there will be a ups label in there to send the wrong refills back to me.

I’ll tell ya, it made my day!  No defensiveness, no blaming someone who works for her..,just a simple, it was my fault, I’m sorry and I’ll fix it right away.  Will I continue doing business with Paradise Pen Company?  No doubt!  What a great way to market! Have I gone back to that Hallmark store?  Nope, never will.

How important is good customer service to you?