A Shaggy Rug Story
By: Ron Burley | Source: AARP.org | March 4, 2009
The Company: Oreck
The Complaint: “This vacuum doesn’t suck.”
The Resolution: Replaced with a new model at no charge.
The smallest things are sometimes the most frustrating—such as not being able to clean your carpets. That’s the complaint I heard from Camille Ludwig of Wayne, N.J., whose brand-new pile carpet thwarted the year-old Oreck upright vacuum cleaner she had purchased for $750.
The Complaint: “This vacuum doesn’t suck.”
The Resolution: Replaced with a new model at no charge.
The smallest things are sometimes the most frustrating—such as not being able to clean your carpets. That’s the complaint I heard from Camille Ludwig of Wayne, N.J., whose brand-new pile carpet thwarted the year-old Oreck upright vacuum cleaner she had purchased for $750.
Ludwig was enticed by ads claiming the machine would automatically adjust to bare floors and to thick or low-pile carpeting. The local Oreck store gave her no satisfaction. Eventually the company said she could trade in her vacuum for a credit toward a new, improved model.
That wasn’t good enough for Ludwig. She wanted a vacuum as advertised, that was up to the job, or her $750 back.
Ludwig’s logic was immaculate. I was prepared to get down-and-dirty with Oreck—until I reached Laurel Blair, one of the most responsive public relations persons I’ve ever encountered.
“I’ve been in dirt for more than two decades,” Blair said. “I was the first person to ever videotape dust mites.”
Within 12 hours of hearing Ludwig’s story, Blair arranged for Oreck’s vice president of quality control to call Ludwig to diagnose the problem. (Turns out that frieze carpets are setting a new standard for dense-pile carpeting, and that Oreck had an upgraded model that could cope with it.) Blair also made sure that when Ludwig received her replacement vacuum, someone was there to confirm it did the job.
The bottom line: Blair understood that there is never a good reason not to respond to a sincere request for customer service or a refund. Too many companies seem to think they’d be setting a bad precedent; that jumping to help would open the floodgates to those pleading for similar treatment.
Ludwig’s logic was immaculate. I was prepared to get down-and-dirty with Oreck—until I reached Laurel Blair, one of the most responsive public relations persons I’ve ever encountered.
“I’ve been in dirt for more than two decades,” Blair said. “I was the first person to ever videotape dust mites.”
Within 12 hours of hearing Ludwig’s story, Blair arranged for Oreck’s vice president of quality control to call Ludwig to diagnose the problem. (Turns out that frieze carpets are setting a new standard for dense-pile carpeting, and that Oreck had an upgraded model that could cope with it.) Blair also made sure that when Ludwig received her replacement vacuum, someone was there to confirm it did the job.
The bottom line: Blair understood that there is never a good reason not to respond to a sincere request for customer service or a refund. Too many companies seem to think they’d be setting a bad precedent; that jumping to help would open the floodgates to those pleading for similar treatment.
The way I see it, if you’ve got legions of customers drooling for refunds, you’ve got much bigger problems.
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