life review: customer service

I've been having some great luck with customer service lately and just wanted to share my experiences. It seems like we never forget to post about our negative customer service experiences and share them with friends and family, but rarely do we rave about the great experiences so here I am sharing mine.

Company: Metro (in-store)
Product: Selection White Cake Box Mix
Issue: did not perform as expected even though directions were perfectly followed. I emailed Metro about the issue and didn't really expect anything in return but I received an email from their customer service with a specification that someone would follow up with me via mail. A few days later I received a letter in the mail from Metro stating that they were sorry I had a negative experience with their store-brand product, told that all their Selection and Irresistibles items come with a full money back guarantee and given a $5 gift card for my trouble and as a sign of good faith.
Resolution: I was extremely pleased. I didn't expect to get a $5 gift card in return for telling them about a poorly performing product and the gift card always didn't sway me to shop at Metro more in the future (I already do most of my grocery shopping at Metro or Loblaws) but I appreciated the gesture nonetheless.


Company: Topbox (online)
Product: Topbox July box
Issue: I received a Neostrata package, which would've been awesome, except that I have no use for anti-aging products (yet). I ended up posting my Neostrata package to Instagram and someone alerted me to the fact that there was a shipping error with July's boxes. Topbox confirmed the error on IG and told me to email them with the correct package that I had selected.

Resolution: Topbox sent me a brand new package, the one that I had selected, and the entire issue was dealt with in a weeks' time (including a weekend for postage). The best part is that Topbox didn't request that I send the Neostrata package back so I gifted it to a friend's mother who loves Neostrata anti-aging products!

Company: Julep (online)
Product: Nail Polish in Misti
Issue: Nail polish arrived dry and half full. It was completely unusable.
Resolution: I emailed customer service and notified them about the issue, asking for a replacement or credit to my account. I received an automatic reply saying that their CS was busy and that a reply would arrive in 4-5 days, longer than the usual (which I think it 1-2). I received a reply six days later saying that they would send me a new polish and asked if I could send them photos of the polish in question. Don't be worried about the photo request as I was the one who offered to take and send them. I received an email notification that a replacement polish was sent and an estimated arrival date. Since Julep's shipping takes a long time (about two weeks), it took almost a month to resolve my issue. Personally I feel like that's a bit of a long time, especially the extra day or two delay for someone from customer service to get back to me. I've heard a lot of negative things about Julep's CS but this experience resulting in a positive for me, albeit a little bit slow.

So there you have it...all within a month, I had three company issues but all were very friendly and helpful in their responses.