Falling in Love with FreshDirect

By Tommy Leung on 07/18/2010 in Life, Marketing

I don’t believe in love at first sight. And it’s true, I’ve only known FreshDirect for about a week. But it might be love. I’ve never loved a supermarket or grocery store. What is there to love? They are all about the same. Boring.

None of them really care about you or even pretend to care. And honestly, you don’t have any loyalties to them. You’re shopping with whomever has a sale this week. It could be that one today and this one tomorrow. Whichever one is more convenient at the time.

There are some exceptions. Trader Joe’s comes to mind. I like Trader Joe’s. But, they’ve never wow-ed me.

When you are someone who reads Seth Godin‘s books and blogs, you come to believe that phenomenal customer exists but, you’ve never really experienced it. Almost frustrating.

That purple cow is really more like a unicorn. You’ve heard about it. Heard great things but, you’ve never actually seen one. You’ve seen horses but, not really a unicorn. Similar but, not quite there.

It’s hard to find but, once you find it there is no going back. Nothing else compares. Not having it will make you irritable; you curse out the morons who just don’t do it right. Much like the once-common disease known as female hysteria. Symptoms included: faintness, nervousness, insomnia, irritability, and “a tendency to cause trouble”. The treatment was simple: orgasm.

Let’s be honest, that does solve many problems.

So how do I know that this thing with FreshDirect might just be real? FreshDirect has a lot going for it. The food is amazing. Shopping for locally grown produce is exhilarating. Knowing that you could have driven to the small family farm where your food came from is oddly assuring.

Lab coat wearing scientists can say that the nutrition content is identical to traditionally farmed produce. I’d say their tests are obviously flawed. The food tastes different. It looks different. It is not identical. They can take their conclusions, turn it sideways, and stick it straight in their filing cabinets.

And if 2012 really does bring the end of the world, I’d like to know that there are farms around me. Apocalypse or not, I still have to eat.

You’ve probably also seen Food, Inc. I have. If you haven’t, you should. We can grow healthy, high-quality food without factory farms. Those who say it’s impossible are contradicting the fundamental way in which agriculture and factory farms came to be: the free market. People demanded food and we found a way to grow more of it using less and less space. Awesome.

Today, we want good food. The market will find a way. It always does. And it won’t destroy the planet as we know it because it’ll take 1000000x–guesstimate–the land to raise all these cows, chickens, pigs, etc. humanely and organically. Like I said, the market will find a way. If there is legitimate market demand, it will happen. For now, prices will be sky high. This is how the market works.

But, this love is not just about the food. I love the food. I do. But, there’s more. It’s Katie and Allie at FreshDirect.

My FreshDirect order was scheduled for the 11 – 1PM time slot. I got up at around 10. I was out last night but, not that late. I slept in anyway. I like doing that. It’s a Saturday.

I did my Saturday morning stuff: shower, breakfast, Facebook, etc. I was expecting a delivery any time between 11AM and 1PM so I took that as an opportunity to catch up on some blogs and other readings. I also let my Roomba do it’s thing–I’m delegating.

1PM came and went and nothing. No FreshDirect delivery. I figured they were running late. Then it was 1:45. Well, that’s quite late–I think that can be considered being stood up. So I checked the website and their FAQs. Late deliveries usually result in a call to notify you. Well, I didn’t get that. Maybe there was an issue? I sent Customer Service an e-mail.

They respond to e-mails in roughly 1 – 3 hours according to their site–in reality, they did it much fast. I took the wait time to clean my kitchen. I had to do it eventually so might as well do it while I’m in a holding pattern anyway.

I got a reply shortly:

I am very sorry to hear that your order #XXXXXXX did not arrive between the 11-1pm delivery timeslot you requested.

I have contacted the delivery team and they informed me that your order was scanned as delivered at 10:34am. Since the route is done for the day we were unable to confirm this with the driver. I suggest checking outside your door or with your doorman if applicable. If you are still unable to locate your order please call us at 212-796-8002 so we can investigate this issue further or set up a re-delivery  for another day. I am very sorry for the inconvenience.

I’d like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to help solve your problem.  If, for any reason you’re dissatisfied with how we resolved your problem, or need further assistance, please feel free to e-mail us directly by responding to this e-mail or call us at 212-796-8002.

Your satisfaction is our number one priority!

Sincerely,

Katie

The response was timely and personable. I can tell there’s template customer service copy but, a real person also wrote some of that. Unlike when I send my Senators a message and they send me back a blanket response of bullshit. Not so fond of that.

So I read that and went to check my door. I may have been in the shower at 10:34AM and if they got into the building without buzzing me then I would have never known.

I open my door and 4 FreshDirect boxes were staring at me. Awesome! I brought them in and unpacked everything. I then went to send a reply to customer service to let them know that it all worked out fine.

hey Katie (or whomever this reply gets to in customer service),

My order was stacked outside my apartment. lol, thanks. I was just expecting to be buzzed and all that. My building door hasn’t been functioning correctly recently so I should have guessed.

Anyway, thanks a lot! Came in perfect condition as usual!

So, I was totally fine with what happened. I’m not new to deliveries. UPS and FedEx screws up every once in a while. USPS screws up about as much as they successfully deliver a package–standard government quality.

So I thought that was that. I wanted to let them know that everything was fine since Katie actually took time to give me real suggestions. I figured someone would probably read it and file it away. That’s not what happened. And that’s how you wow a customer.

A while later, I got another reply from FreshDirect customer service saying this:

Thank you for emailing FreshDirect. I am sorry to hear that your order was left unattended.

Upon reviewing your account I see that your order was delivered at 10:45am. I have issued a store credit in the amount of $5.79, for your delivery fee. You will receive an email regarding this credit once it has finished processing and ready to use.

I’d like to thank you for letting us know what occurred and giving us the opportunity to help solve your problem. If, for any reason you’re dissatisfied with how we resolved your problem, or need further assistance, please feel free to e-mail us directly by responding to this e-mail or call us at 212-796-8002.

Your satisfaction is our number one priority!

Sincerely,
Allie

Honestly, I had no expectations. I thought my order was fine. What I ordered arrived in a condition I expected. All was well. FreshDirect didn’t need to do anything more and this blog post would have never been written.

Any marketing student who paid attention in their CRM class can tell you about perceptions and expectations. This is classic exceeding of expectations. It’s simple and it works.

I’m pretty confident Katie and Allie didn’t go to work today expecting to be written about in a blog later that day. But it happens when you wow your customers. Zappos is the classic case study of delivering happiness. I have never shopped with Zappos so I can’t attest to anything. Certainly, if Zappos does an even better job that FreshDirect then I don’t know if I can handle it.

(Okay JetBlue, I like your customer service too–just in case you were getting jealous there. And Virgin–I like you too.)

Aren’t we all just used to terrible customer service? The person tasked with servicing you is either a robot or is reading a script as if they were a robot. You know, “unplug your modem, wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in”. That kind of customer service. You’d think that after all the years of telling customers exactly that, they’d figure we probably already tried that one before waiting 40 minutes.

And so for all those reasons, I think I may be falling in love with FreshDirect. Can you blame me? :)

By Tommy Leung