Something Nice, for a Change:  Harry & David Does Marketing Right

Here at StupidMarketing Labs, we sometimes see something so rare, so wonderful, that we hesitate to point it out for fear of spooking the herd.

But Harry and David (“Love Them Grapefruits!”) did something right, out of something wrong.

Specifically…

I ordered a Christmas gift for a friend. Yes, it’s early, but I was being organized and ordering online, and H&D have a great option on their order form that says “Deliver… [date / holiday / etc]”.

I chose “Christmas Delivery”.

About a week later, my friend called up and expressed delight for the pears I’d sent. (!)

I called H&D, not particularly happy that I would now need to think up a new Xmas gift.

Before I finished explaining what had happened, the H&D rep had started to apologize – and arguably more importantly, stated that they would “of course” resend that gift at xmas, and was there anything else I wanted (refund etc).

What a great demonstration of the “Everyone works for marketing” philosophy. 

- The customer service rep was true to the brand image (H&D = high quality, down home, friendly folks).

- The rep was effective at educating me on the H&D way, and setting my expectations.

- Most importantly, the rep turned me into a word of mouth marketer for H&D! For the cost of a (big) box of pears, H&D just effectively bought credible testimony spread to hundreds of people via Internet blog. How smart is that?

(See Krispy Kreme entry, recently updated, for an opposite approach)

Best of all, realize that this great marketing happened because H&D had trained their reps to market, and seize on an opportunity that grew out of an H&D mistake. A mistake! A flub, flaw, error! The rep turned around a situation, and made lemonade out of lemons! (Er, pear juice out of pears? Whatever)

Now, I’m not sure if I should be sad because this is such a rare occurrence (has customer service and fiefdom beyond marketing at all other companies really become that poor? Is it only individual proprietorships like Regan’swho care about their image enough to embed marketing into their philosophy?) ….

…but for now, I’m celebrating, because H&D “get it”. Everyone works for marketing.

So they kept my money.

They earned my respect.

And Jennifer & Forrest, I hope y’all like pears, ‘cause there are a lot more coming.

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[ps: Please buy my book.  http://buynow.stupidmarketing.com -- and tell your friends!]

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