Outstanding Service Results in Glowing Feedback from Customer Phillip Zerebny

Last week, Barry Levine, Vice President Sales & Marketing, received an e-mail thank you from a customer, Phillip Zerebny, who was kind enough to allow us to reprint his letter on our blog.

Dear Barry,

I can’t thank you enough for the outstanding service and expert advice you provided me with my recent purchase. My brothers and I are planning a birthday party for our mother and I took on the task of creating the invitations. I placed an order for paper and envelopes through your web site. Within a few days they arrived and I was very pleased with the quality. I printed the invitations and upon stuffing the envelopes, I realized I had the incorrect phone number for the reply.

On Sunday I placed an identical order for the misprinted paper. The very next day I received a voice message from Linda explaining there was a problem obtaining the paper from the manufacturer. I immediately returned her call and she suggested that I speak with you regarding possible alternatives. I have to say that I was very impressed, not only with your knowledge of my printer but the knowledge of your products. You informed me that the weight of the alternate paper I was interested in wouldn’t be suitable for my printer and suggested that I email the invitation to you.

When I returned from work the next day I had a voice message from you. I called you back and you told me that you had taken it upon yourself to print the invitations and send them out that very same day…I was floored. Never before have I received this type of extraordinary service from any company or merchant. You have gained a life-long customer and advocate of the products and services you provide. Once again, thanks a million.

Sincerely,

Phillip Zerebny

I asked Barry about the circumstances surrounding his interaction with the customer. LCI Paper does not offer printing services, so I wanted to know why Barry had gone ahead and printed Phillip's invitations.

"Because we didn't have the stock that he originally chose, we suggested the same color of stock in a different line. My biggest concern about sending him that stock was since it was Vice Versa stock that we were substituting, the pattern of the finish is quite different than the smooth stock. It's the same color, but the finish is quite different. That being said, and the fact that the customer was in a crunch time situation where they had to get their invitations out the door, I suggested that I would test the papers out for the customer to let him know whether I found it acceptable on my office printer--which I feel is a good printer and a reputable one--before I actually sent the paper out to the customer."

Barry was also concerned that Phillip might have been using an HP inkjet printer, "...which in most cases, feeds paper from a bottom tray. As we all know, not all printers behave the same way with various papers we have. So I tested the Vice Versa paper on my inkjet printer. I determined that it was certainly an acceptable paper for inkjet, at least as it pertains to the printer that I was using, and made somewhat of an on-the-spot decision that if the customer was OK with the paper, because there were so few that he needed, I was going to print the remaining card stocks for him. He was nice enough to provide me with the file that he had so nicely created. It was more or less of a service that I provided personally as a gratis service."

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