Now that's Customer Service

Had lunch today with my old friend Jean. She's 83 and I don't mean 'old' in the literal sense -- far from it as she could out hike me on any one of her many hiking trips thru the Swiss Alps which she does on an annual basis. But I digress. She told me an interesting matter-of-fact story of why she likes to shop at the Trader Joe's in Arlington, MA -- despite the fact that it's sort of hectic drive to get there down Mass Avenue.

Her main point: the staff there are really extremely nice folks. She then relayed a story that started with an account of how much she loves their Risotto "dinners" (the fact that they really are from Italy and are apparently quite good, in particular, according to Jean -- the mushroom one). Well, anyway, she went there one day only to discover that they were no longer carrying this product. Any one of us would have moved on to the next aisle; not Jean. She called the store manager over and asked him what the deal was with the absence. He looked at her confused and said he had no idea, but that he would find out and get back to her. Yes, he took her telephone number and promised to call.

Guess what? He did. He called her back the next day and said the reason they weren't "currently" carrying the products was that there was a strike at the docks in Italy and this caused the delay in the product shipment. Okay, made sense. But here's the best part. In about 2-3 weeks -- he called her back to report that the strike was over and the product was back on the shelves! Talk about follow up! Nice job Trader Joe guy.