customer-service

On customer service and being “seen”

/ lintqueen / Leave a comment

One thing that really delights me[1] is being “seen.”

When someone notices my little quirks, habits, mannerisms or things that make me happy and comments on them — or better yet, acts on them — it makes me feel special. In fact, it was one of the first things I found fascinating about Adrian: not long after we met he observed that I “do a thing” when I meet someone new, whereby I use a relatively consistent system (an “algorithm,” if you will) to figure out how the new person and I are connected.  I knew I could nearly always find a connection, but I hadn’t realized that I had a method for doing so.

My definition of good exceptional service (at a restaurant, on a plane, at a hotel, etc.) is a combination of two things that (at first) may seem contradictory: it should be both unnoticeable and it should make me feel “seen.” 

The example I always use for the unnoticable part was the casual bar/restaurant at my Dad’s club in Charlotte, where at lunch a basket of individually wrapped packages of crackers (melba toast, saltines, captain’s wafers) was served along with the meal. I love melba toast2 and would usually eat several packages3, yet not once do I remember seeing any of cracker detritus on the table — and that includes the (numerous) crumbs!  They were all whisked away, silently and immediately, without a fuss (as it should be).

The other component of exceptional service happens when people whose job is ostensibly to perform a specific service (serve the food, check me into the hotel, ring up groceries, etc.) do more than that, and *see* me: an employee at a restaurant that, upon learning that I’ll buy cupcakes just to get the icing, *gives* me a tub of icing, or a random hospital employee who walks me to the elevators for parking when it’s clear that I’m not only lost, but also so directionally challenged that any verbal directions would be, uh, lost on me.

Back in August, Adrian and I had dinner at minibar, a molecular gastronomy restaurant owned by José Andrés (who you may also know as the founder of World Central Kitchen). The overall experience was delightful — even in early exchanges about dietary preferences4 I felt like they were *glad* to be making me happy. 

The meal itself was stunning — 26 courses, each plated and served at once to all 12 guests (the restaurant does two seatings of 12 guests every night) along with a narrative about the dish. As is common with molecular gastronomy many of the dishes seemed to be one thing but were actually another entirely: the butterflies in the first image were actually made of beets! 

Minibar is also known for its drinks and is next door to barmini, José Andrés’ molecular gastronomy-inspired craft cocktail bar; however, like many upscale cocktail bars these days, most of the cocktails are based on brown liquor5, which I’m not a huge fan of.

Ok, enough backstory — this is where things get spectacular.  Each pair of guests had someone who was sort of like their concierge. I’m sure there’s a proper restaurant term for their role, but I don’t know what that is, so I’ll just tell you that ours was Rita, and she was fabulous. When the time came to take our drink order, I hesitated as I’d seen the ones listed and, though they looked interesting, they were, like barmini’s drinks, very brown-spirit based. I asked Rita if she’d mind if I told her what sorts of drinks I’m fond of and maybe they could surprise me?  Rita seemed delighted by the challenge and asked what I liked, to which I replied “vodka-y and sweet.”  After clarifying that fruity-sweet was my favorite sweet, Rita briefly vanished, only to return with a great big smile as a tray was brought out with my drink-to-be6…

My drink was vodka, mango juice, and a little vanilla whisked with liquid nitrogen until it made a sorbetto. The sorbetto was rolled into little canelles, which were placed into a coupe glass with a tiki pattern on the stem, then topped with cava.

Alongside the presentation was a wee tiki-styled vase containing a demitasse spoon, for stirring my drink as my sorbetto melted.

When Adrian tasted a sip, he asked if they’d sampled my DNA or something, as they’d nailed The Best Drink for Gina so thoroughly. The way Rita absolutely aced the drink order was both: (a) overall indicative of our experience at Minibar and (b) a great example of someone making me feel “seen.”

As it turned out, though, the most delightful bit was yet to come.

Yesterday I received a FedEx box, which contained the letter below7 and three packs of Peeps:

OH WOW. Mind absolutely blown. POOF!

Also note that she sent this letter with the peeps (meaning I hadn’t yet sent her my address), which also means she went to this site, followed the link to my store, and found my address there!

  1. Ok, there are a lot of things that really delight me, but that’s also kinda delightful, right? :-). Feeling like I’ve been seen is definitely a consistent Gina-delighter, though. ↩︎
  2. Though I never buy it. Note to self: look for melba toast at store. ↩︎
  3. I feel I should add that it was a messy affair, as melba toast are crumbly, but to be honest, that is putting too much responsibility on the toasts. I am the crumb-maker, not the toasts. Accountability and all that. ↩︎
  4. Wherein I explained my version of “too spicy” is Old El Paso mild salsa and was reassured it would be no trouble to modify the dishes so my face didn’t get burned off. (And it apparently wasn’t: nothing was “too spicy” for me. :-) ↩︎
  5. Whisky, whiskey, bourbon, scotch, gin (which isn’t brown but often tastes of floor cleaner, so I lump it in there) ↩︎
  6. This would have been a video save for the fact that my version of WordPress seems not to allow it. Harrumph. ↩︎
  7. I removed Rita’s address, of course. ↩︎

Customer service announcement and review: do not buy from Hugl or Plufl

/ lintqueen / Leave a comment

tl;dr: terribly made product; worse customer experience

Ed note: This is the review I attempted to post (three times!) on their website at https://weareplufl.com/products/hugl-cooling-body-pillow. I even mailed it to the customer service rep who I had been working with during this process in case it had gotten “lost.” However, despite my efforts, my review has gone unpublished (which is also extremely dishonest, IMHO). So, I’m doing what I said I would and publishing it here, even though this is not the sort of content I enjoy publishing.

Review below:

I really should write a long review that details my terrible experience, but I’m just ready to be done with anything having to do with Hugl or Plufl (makers of “the world’s first human dog bed”).  The bullet-point version:

  • The cover of my “Hugl Cooling Body Pillow” began to pill within 2 weeks of receiving it
  • The grommets on the cover had (a) sharp edges and (b) pulled away from the fabric tabs
  • It was not comfortable at all — look at the angles of peoples’ heads and necks in the photos on their website: your head should align with your spine, but the Hugl is so overstuffed that it forces your head up at a crick-inducing angle
  • Uncomfortable and defective? Yeah, I decided to return the product.  I was assuming that since it was defective (pilling cover with grommets that were pulling away from the fabric) they’d cover return shipping.  Nope.  They were willing to charge me **$60** so that I could return my defective product.
  • I said I’d pay the return shipping (as I knew I could ship it more cheaply than $60) and only then did they offer to send me a new cover. 
  • I pointed out that a new cover wasn’t likely to help unless they’d changed the design….
  • And (again) only then did Hugl say they had changed the cover, because they’d received significant other complaints.
    • IOW: they told me there had been problems with the cover I had issues with only after I’d said I didn’t want a new cover. IMHO, they should have replied to my first email and said “Oh, we’re so sorry. Yes, the pilling is a known issue. Let us send you one of our new and improved covers free of charge.”
  • Despite the fact that they’d (theoretically) fixed the Hugl cover at this point, by now I was fed up with the runaround (it had taken five email exchanges just to get this far!), dishonesty, and admittedly inferior product, so I said “no thank you. I don’t appreciate the way Hugl/Plufl runs, and I just want to return this product. I will pay my own return shipping fee to do so.”
  • I packed and sent the thing back. HUGL received my (tracked) return on April 12. I did not receive my refund until May 1.  Almost three weeks to issue a credit for an item that they had received (and even acknowledged they received)

I’ve left out many of the smaller (yet equally frustrating) details (like being charged $60 return shipping when shipping via UPS was half that), but the bottom line is that if I am paying $150+ (or $199 at the current price, which is “on sale”) for a “luxury” product, I expect to:

  • be able to return said product free of charge if it is defective
  • be TOLD that the defect I have noted is a known issue and offered a replacement free of charge when I first start the return process
  • receive a refund within 2 business days (4 maximum) of my return being received

I expect this review may vanish from the site (ed note: or it’ll never show up at all), so I’m also posting it on my social networks and website. I enjoy supporting smaller retailers and businesses that are trying to think outside the box; however, this experience has been closer to backing a Kickstarter that failed than purchasing from a legitimate enterprise. At least with Kickstarter you know you’re taking a gamble.

PS Were there any question about the legitimacy of this Plufl/Hugl, check out their shipping and returns policy:  https://weareplufl.com/pages/shipping-duties-and-return-information (ed note: this page was blank until recently. There are policies there now, but as you can see from my experience they are not following them.)

More thoughts after the fact

The company should have raised alarm bells for me from the start. This is a screenshot of one of the graphics on the Hugl page:

graphic from Hugl page as captured on June 11, 2024
Notice any issues here? What does it say about a company’s commitment to quality when they don’t even bother to size website graphics correctly so they are not blurry?

And, of course, the fact that their https://weareplufl.com/pages/shipping-duties-and-return-information is sometimes blank …yeah, that should have been a tip-off also.

Ugh. Do not make the mistake I did. Do not order from Hugl or Plufl. Do not trust the reviews on their site.