Thursday, July 13, 2006

An example of amazing retail follow-up

As I've mentioned before I recently took a new role at AOL and with this new role I will be doing quite a bit of traveling. Last night I headed into Baltimore to work from the Advertising.com offices where I had a few meetings today.

Since I lived in Baltimore for over 5 years Jos A Banks was the place to shop for shirts and suits. Apparently they've been having some earnings pressure so I had been receiving almost daily emails about the amazing sales at the local stores.

Almost too many.

Last night on the way to get some dinner I had the opportunity to stop by their Light Street store. They had a great deal on 2 shirts for ~$60. I picked out two $100 shirts and checked out. They only took my credit card.

What did I find in my inbox?

This -

On behalf of everyone at Jos. A. Bank, we thank you for your recent purchase.

At Jos. A. Bank, we pride ourselves on the outstanding quality of our products and our tremendous customer service. We hope your experience at Jos. A. Bank was a pleasant one and that we met all your expectations.

We look forward to serving all your clothing needs in the future. Again, we thank you for your patronage!

Sincerely,

Clifton $$$$$
Light Street 410-547-####

This was interesting for a few reasons.
  1. Andy Monfried a former colleague and a great person just wrote an excellent piece about the importance of follow-up. Read it here. This doesn't follow all of his rules but then again he's selling some big ticket items.
  2. This is a highly personalized thank you. Name and phone number of Clifton. (not sure if Clifton helped me, but still a nice touch)
  3. Timeliness - I received this at 8pm, which is about 24 hours after I bought my two dress shirts.

My guess is that this was an automated system, but from a retailing perspective I'm impressed. I'm looking forward to see if there is any more customization in future mailings.

Blogged riding the Jitney on my Verizon Wireless PC card near exit 52 on the LIE.

No comments: