customer support

[cellio]

Today's mail brought a package for me, which initially puzzled me because my only pending Amazon order came yesterday.

A while ago (year? year and a half?) I called Del Monte to complain about the pull-top lids on their individual fruit cups. I keep these at work as a convenient no-hassle snack, and for three out of the four in the current box, the rings had broken off before opening the lid. (I'd had this happen occasionally before, too.) I do not keep a can opener at work, so that was a hassle -- and a friend who works there told me that they often send out piles of coupons when people complain, so I reported the problem. They seemed apologetic and sent me something like a 50-cent coupon, which was underwhelming, but *shrug*.

Today they sent me a box of fruit cups, along with a letter explaining that they'd redone their packaging and a postage-paid survey card with which to report back on whether this worked better.

They kept my complaint on file for more than a year, and followed up with something that specifically addressed that complaint. I'm surprised.

Comments

[mortuus.livejournal.com]

Impressive!

[magid.livejournal.com]

That is pretty surprising.

Let us know whether the new packaging works any better?

[cellio]

It does, in fact. It's still the same basic ring design, which has a point of weakness at the joint (pop ring up, then pull back -- so the point of attachment gets flexed). The ring and lid seem to be made of thicker metal and the diameter of the can is smaller (I'm guessing that means less torque). The can is, instead, deeper.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's cool.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

What particularly impresses me about this is that it's not a gift to appease you, it's a genuine attempt to see if the new design works better by asking someone for whom the old design didn't work. So, does the new design work better?

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Instead of sending you "replacements" of the old kind, they paid attention to complaints. Impressive.

[cellio]

Yes, the genuine attempt to test the change with actual customers surprised and impresses me. I infer from the pre-printed postage-paid cards that they sent out quite a few of these, too.

The new top does work better (see my comment to magid above for details).

[nickjong.livejournal.com]

That's cool; Del Monte's gesture shows at least some class.