A Postive Experience

I am a consumer. Far too often I, as most consumers, have negative experiences with companies and their products. And it seems that seriously loathing a company gets me no where. No matter how many complaint phone calls I make to AT&T they still don't care - but that's a whole other blog. I want to instead, focus on a positive experience I had.

Jaron has this bucket full of plastic cars, planes, boats and trains given to him as a gift a while ago. He's seemed to enjoy playing with it - especially the trains. Unfortunately, his beloved engine broke. The plastic hook area got twisted one to many times and hence, his train cannot function as a real train. Quite a distressing situation for Jaron.

In my naive consumer mind I wondered if there was a way I could get the vehicle replaced. A quick Google search and I found the website for International Playthings which distributes and makes his toys called "Viking Toys".

Amazingly enough, I easily located a 1-800 number and within 30 seconds I was talking to someone. An actual costumer service representative that was friendly and helpful. No waiting on hold, no going through tireless rounds with an automated voice service and no pushing zero until I got a clueless operator. Clark later said to me, "Wow, you actually talked to someone."

This woman not only listened politely to my problem but was also willing to find a replacement vehicle for Jaron. She first searched amidst the products in her office and when that didn't work took my name, phone number and address. She gave me the option of returning everything to a store for an exchange which really wasn't a desirable alternative. She would continue trying to locate a replacement vehicle and get back to me if anything else came up.

Within 10 minutes of hanging up the phone it was ringing and it was the rep again. She had found a train. She would ship me the train and in addition to that, would send me a shipping label to return the broken train. Talk about hassle free.

I can't even begin to describe how pleasant this whole experience has been. It makes me question why I waste my time and money purchasing products from companies that typically treat me, as the consumer, as unimportant, uninformed, and unworthy of their attention. I felt like the only way I could "repay" this company is to share with you (whoever may be reading this) my great experience. So happy consuming!