Given my affinity for L.L. Bean and its lifetime guarantee with its products, I guess it should come as no surprise that L.L.Bean has once again been hailed as the cream of the crop, so says a National Retail Federation (NRF) press release. (L.L. Bean was number one last year, too.)
According to the fourth annual NRF Foundation/American Express Customers’ Choice survey, conducted by BIGresearch, shoppers revealed that L.L.Bean delivers the best customer service in all retail formats.
Interestingly, in the four years that NRF has been doing this survey, shoppers have increasingly identified internet-only retailers among those who offered the best customer service.
Here are the other retailers take top spots in the survey–notice how some of the top ones are dot coms:
- L.L. Bean
- Overstock.com
- Zappos.com
- Amazon.com
- Lands’ End
- Newegg (I’d never heard of this website before, but when I logged onto Newegg.com, I discovered that it’s all about affordable electronics and computers.)
- JC Penney
- QVC
- Coldwater Creek
- Nordstrom
Like L.L. Bean, Lands’ End offers a lifetime guarantee on its products, which I’m sure boosts it in the eyes of its customers.
Here’s another reason I’ll bet Lands’ End got top marks–it knows how to treat customers well in nearly all situations. Case in point: after my post that mentions free shipping earlier this month, a reader sent me the following message (which she has given me permission to reprint here) about a positive Lands’ End experience:
I recently placed an order with Lands’ End. The next day there was an email from Lands’ End with a notice of free shipping for the next 3 days. I called customer service, told them about my order, they gave me the free shipping.
Now Lands’ End didn’t have to honor the free shipping offer, since this customer had already placed and paid for her order. But in extending the free shipping offer to her, that was certainly the right thing to do.
As far as my own customer-service experiences, I know that for the longest time Nordstrom offered a no-questions-asked return policy, which made shopping there and returning anything much more pleasant than at other stores.
I’m a bit surprised that Target wasn’t anywhere on this list. Overall, I’ve had a good experience with the store, especially in regards to returns. Well, wait, there were a couple of times when I didn’t have receipts and making a return wasn’t as easy as it had been in the past. But these days Target spits out gift receipts without your even having to ask for them, and a gift receipt is usually your ticket to a hassle-free return.
Finally, while I haven’t always had great experiences with Gap as far as returns go (see my post on buyer beware when shopping at Gap outlet), yesterday Gap surprised me by coming through on something that I thought was a lost cause.
My mother in law had given me a Gap gift card for Christmas, which I decided to cash in with an online order. I placed the order well before New Year’s and was getting a little nervous when it hadn’t arrived by this week. When I went online to check its status, I discovered that it had been delivered to my old house. Now how that happened is beyond me–I’ve placed a number of orders with Gap.com since I’ve moved, and none of those orders went to my old house.
Whatever.
I’ll just call the people who bought my old house and ask them to put the package on their front step so I can come by and pick it up. Except they don’t recall getting a Gap package. Now either their lying (why would they?) or UPS screwed up. As luck would have it, the package was delivered “no signature required” so there was no holding anyone accountable for the package’s whereabouts.
I really thought I was SOL as far as my clothes were concerned. Here’s where Gap surprised me.
When I called customer service and told them what happened, they told me that they will make a one-time replacement shipment when an order is lost in delivery or can’t be recovered. That’s so cool! What isn’t cool is the fact that three of the seven items I’d originally ordered have sold out. Well, at least Gap is sending me a gift card with a credit on it for the irreplaceable items.
Can you recall instances of killer (as in “good”) customer service? Do tell!
6 Comments
January 14, 2009 at 7:53 am
Big Zappos.com fan here. The free shipping, of course, is great, but many times they’ll upgrade to free overnight shipping. And the returns? Easy.
One company I know wouldn’t be on the list of Victoria’s Secret. They charge a restock fee when returning items bought online. Boo.
June 27, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Boo to LLBean – they charge a $6.50 return shipping fee – you have to pay to send it back too — I agree — Booo
And the quality of the luggeage was nothing like had been advertised.
January 14, 2009 at 8:30 am
That’s a great story about Gap. I had a similar thing happen with Ann Taylor Loft, and they were not so kind – they just kept saying it had shipped to my house when the DHL receipt clearly had a different address on it. I made about eight phone calls, and then just gave up.
January 14, 2009 at 8:51 am
I’ve had great luck with Land’s End, and I love being able to return to Sear’s.
When I was a bride (last year), I heard from numerous sources not to register at Target, that guests bought the same item several time because it was never marked “bought,” and that returns were a huge hassle (I think I remember that you can’t return after 3 months). I’ve had great experiences with the customer at Bed Bath and Beyond though, and recommend that registrant’s register there. You can return any item, any time, and since there are no sales and very few items end up on clearance, you get back the full price.
Since I shop ahead of time (for example, for the holidays), when there are sales/promotions, I really dislike companies like Overstock and Amazon that strictly limit your ability to return the item (3 months and 30 days, if I remember correctly).
I’m sorry to hear about your situation with Gap. My husband and I received clothes from there with no gift receipt as a gift. None of the items worked out, and we tried to return them. Unfortunately, they could only issue us store credit. I understand that they couldn’t issue us cash and that we’d only receive the current (super sale) price since they didn’t know what the purchaser paid for the items. But I’m frustrated that I was not able to get a gift card with the money to “regift” it to someone else.
I enjoy learning what stores/companies work for others; keep up the good work!
January 14, 2009 at 9:13 am
I’m a huge fan of both Lands’ End and L.L. Bean.
I got my daughter’s parka from Lands’ End last fall. The first time she put it on, we realized the zipper was faulty. It was a cold day, so she wore the coat anyway, but was cold at recess and then after school because she couldn’t close her coat. I emailed Lands’ End and they shipped me a replacement coat that day and included a return label for me to return the old coat.
L.L. Bean is high on my list excellent customer service too. My husband got a fleece coat for Christmas. No tags, no receipt. It needed to be returned, so I sent the coat back with a letter detailing the situation and what I wanted done. Someone from customer service called me to confirm one detail and then the coat was delivered.
January 14, 2009 at 10:00 am
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