Expecting More from Beloved Luxury Brands
December 6th, 2006
I love St. John Knits. The 40+ year old ladieswear brand represents timeless, simple elegance to me. I love the ads, the clothes, the story - everything. 4 years ago, I made my first major investment in St. John by choosing to wear one of their evening gowns instead of a wedding dress. I needed some major alterations to make the dress work for a wedding and, due to the unique nature of the knit, was advised by the St. John Company store to ship it to their headquarters to have the alterations done. To my shock, the dress was returned from HQ, unaltered, with a note stating that doing the alterations would have “damaged the integrity of the design”. Crestfallen, I wrote a letter to the CEO. 48 hours later, the VP of customer service at St. John phoned me at work, asked me to ship her the dress, and personally supervised the dress being altered (free of charge) and returned to me. This act showed respect for me as a customer and I in turn respect them as a company and a brand.
The day after Thanksgiving, I took my mother-in-law to Neiman Marcus in Ft. Worth for some Black Friday shopping. I wasn’t planning on looking for anything as pricey as St. John, but reconsidered as a saleslady pointed out 2 rows of jackets were 65% off the already reduced price. Hmm…maybe a new jacket for the WOMMA summit might be nice. After agonizing over my selection, I went to check out and the item did not ring up with the discount. They went back to the section to check the sign and saw that I had been correct about what it read, but that it was wrong and they would take down the sign and not honor the discount. I protested. Had the signage and saleswoman not called my attention to the faux sale, I never would have wasted my time trying on a single item. They called over another saleslady who explained that the saleslady who helped me originally did not belong in that section - I told them that I had not asked to see her St. John credentials and should not be held responsible for her misinformation. I tried to escalate in store, but they couldn’t get a hold of the manager. I emailed Neiman Marcus online and they replied immediately that they were concerned and had forwarded the concern to the manager of the Ridgmar Store and he would contact me directly. 10 days later and with 1 additional follow up from me, he has yet to follow up by email or any one of the multiple numbers I included for his convenience.
If this had happened at WalMart, I would have expected misleading signs and crappy help. I expect a lot more from Neiman Marcus - a brand I formerly put on a pedestal with St. John and other luxury brands. In fact, the reason I didn’t write about this immediately is that I honestly believed that they would make this right. I wanted to give them every opportunity to do so before blogging or shredding my beautiful bronze NM charge card. I’m even sad about the reflection this has on St. John by association - hard to believe a brand that bent over backwards for me 4 years ago would be OK with the tarnish that such a major distributor can put on their image by having control over the end customer experience.
What are the brands that you hold to a higher standard? Is it because they are higher price, or their reputation? Are you SO loyal that you give them give a second chance upon being let down? Do they come through? I’ll include all relevant comments and “higher standard” brands with my written follow up with the leadership at Neiman’s and St. John.
Other posts by Virginia.
Patrick says:
Some of the brand I hold in high regard are also items I have committed to purchasing. Those include;
Apple Computer - Not only have we purchased three computers from them but also bought other hardware like the Airport Express, iPod Mini and also some of their quality software.
Oreck Vacumn Cleaners - Not long after my wife and I were married we decided to go with a higher quality vacumn to replace the cheaper mass market one I had previously. We have never been happier with the service of the company and performance of the product.
I could name quite a few more but my time is limited this morning.
December 6th, 2006 at 5:20 amMay says:
My grocery store- Nugget (Nuggetmarket.com) they are friendly, have best selection, good prices… I expect excellence. A few times (a while back) I bought eggs and meat that were NOT fresh. They replaced, refunded my $, AND gave me $10-20 each time in store voucher for my trouble. That made the quality control problem a distant memory in my mind.
In-n-out burger. I’ve said it a million times, but this company ROCKS. inexpensive? yes. but highest standards.
I’m sure there are more, but these are the two I hold high, and they stay there despite problems (which, I know are bound to happen)
December 6th, 2006 at 8:11 amJohn Warner says:
Why would you expect misleading signs in WalMart?
WalMart delivers quality. They promise consisently low prices, and they deliver on that. Maybe not the absolutely lowest in town on every single item, but consistently low enough its not worth my time shopping around to save another penny. And I know when I walk in the stuff there is not luxury, but it is good enough to get the job done which most of the time is what I want.
They don’t have the level of personal service of high end stores, but that’s not low quality. They never promised they did, and in return they gave me a better price. Most of the time I like that too.
I’m not buying a suit in WalMart, but I like WalMart for what it is.
December 6th, 2006 at 11:23 amVirginia says:
Thanks for the comment, John. I was just throwing in Wal-Mart as an example of a low-end retailer. I fully admit - my experiences of Wal-Mart are all based in Texas and all over a year old. I found the WalMarts there to be dirty, poorly organized and lit, no sales staff, etc. That coupled with their marketing practices (which apparently even they found egregious given the exec firings yesterday) makes it unlikely I’ll be back. Like so many others, I’ve slowly become a slave to Target!
Maybe that’s another point here - Target isn’t that much more expensive, but because they always exceed my expectations in value and design, my expectations for them have continually risen.
December 6th, 2006 at 12:00 pmVeeDub says:
A local man has made a lot of waves nationally with his photo gallery of just how digusting our local Taylors, SC Wal-Mart is. His photo-essay can be accessed here.
http://flickr.com/photos/filthywalmart/sets/72157594480314905/show/
January 18th, 2007 at 10:47 amScott says:
I bloged on my branding blog last week on a similar subject. I believe that service is dead and few companies actually care. It’s like a big conspiracy, if everyone provides bad service then where do we go?
It’s just a pleasure to actually receive good service and to see someone actually care. I feel for you as I have been in that position time after time.
Maybe some day people will think back and start to consider service as part of the branding chain again.
August 12th, 2007 at 9:59 am