YOUR DREAM IS WAITING

Over the past 5 years I have been a very loyal customer of the Vitamin Shoppe, spending hundreds of dollars a month on various health items, supplements and other goodies to keep me in tip-top shape.  I will say I never had any problem and always experienced great customer service from the website, to in-store employees. 

A few weeks ago, I bought a supplement from the Vitamin Shoppe in the Gaithersburg, Maryland store. After taking the (pills) for a few days, I realized I was experiencing bad side effects from the caffeine in the product. It was hurting my chest and making me have a shortness of breath. So, not thinking anything of it — I took it back to the shoppe for a STORE CREDIT to get some protein powder instead (which was more than the product in question).  When I walked in I was greeted properly and asked if I needed help.  After I told the sales associate what happened, I began to explain that I do not have the receipt for it but it was bought with my Vitamin Shoppe loyalty card and I have the credit card statement, etc.  HE THEN proceeded to tell me that in no-way can they do a return on this item because it was opened and used.  Which doesn’t matter if you have a receipt. But I didn’t.  So i explained, I have the credit card statement from that week to show the purchase and that it was bought with my loyalty card, so I figured they could look me up…. but of course that’s WAY BEYOND the technologies of the vitamin shoppe.  I was disgusted.  Here I am standing with a $45.00 product and the man telling me “there is nothing we can do”.  He never even apologized he just told me that tons of people have taken advantage of the old policy so they had to change it January 1st 2009.  Guess I missed the memo on the change from GREAT customer service to horrible.  What is the point of even using your loyalty card when buying goods from them if they can’t even track your purchases?  he wouldn’t even accept my credit card statement as PROOF!!!  Crazy huh?

When I left the store visibly upset, I quickly pulled out the trusty iPhone and looked up the corporate number.  They told me that returns are decided on a store level but that “the store manager, should honor it for you since you are a valued customer”.  Well guess what.. he didn’t honor anything. 

Vitamin Shoppe just lost a extremely loyal customer of over 5 years.  Looks like I should have stuck with ordering from online vitamin retailers like Nutrition Express, who actually will bend over backwards for the customers they have.  I just got greedy and didn’t want to wait for the shipping time, now I know how valuable that wait can be.

Moral of the story…..

Customer service goes a long way these days.  I can’t stress that enough. How one bad experience (like the one I just bitched about) can literally ruin the loyalty with that customer forever, which it did.  I will never go back, especially after never receiving an apology from the in-store staff.  You might be saying well Vitamin Shoppe is a multi-million dollar company, what do they care if you don’t go back?  Well the answer is, they might not care.  They might not ever find out.  But the point is - word of mouth is the most powerful marketing and communication tool ever. And always will be.  And I promise, that anyone close to me will hear this story and think twice about stopping by to pick any items up from them from here on out.  

I have owned and operated my own companies for the last 3 1/2 years and I will say that without extremely down to earth and HONEST customer service, I wouldn’t be where I am today.  I would do anything to make my customers happy.  If I EVER  got a complaint, I would do anything I could to make the situation right.  Anything.  Because losing one customer can end up meaning the loss of 100.  So if you own, operate or work for a company or small business, make sure you place special emphasis on customer service.  If you really can’t do anything to fix the situation, a simple apology to the customer and a future discount, or some sort of incentive to come back goes a long way.  In this day in age, if a customer has one bad experience, they won’t stick around.  They will high tail it to another business who actually WANTS, that persons business.

I am amazed by what happened today. I hope everyone of you re-evaluate your customer service routines and place special emphasis and TLC on every single one of your customers, big or small.