How to make a customer fall in love with you: SPUD, who delivers organic produce right to my door.
Mar 18th, 2008 by nancyzimmerman
Last week I raved about Workspace.
I’m on a roll. Here’s another business who keeps me well satisfied. With food, that is. Organic food, delivered fresh to my door every couple weeks.
It’s called SPUD: Small Potatoes Urban Delivery.
Here’s what they did to win my heart:
- After I signed up, they called me. Not to cross-sell me. To make sure everything had gone smoothly. And they did this a couple times.
- When I asked them if they could take my payment from my bank account 3 days after delivery to coincide with my paycheque, they said yes. And they did. And they didn’t make any mistakes. They just did it, no hassle.
- When I called a couple times because the bananas were too green for my liking, they credited my account. Just like that.
- When I said, “I get the rubber bin for delivery, but I live in a tiny condo and the bin takes of 20% of my real estate” they arranged for mine to get packed in cardboard boxes which I recycle. And they didn’t guilt me out about it.
- They cross sell the way I like. Online, they have little teaser images of gorgeous looking food playfully enticing me. And know what? I usually can’t resist. And it’s usually an cross sell that makes sense to me. I don’t feel used. I feel… taken care of, if you know what I mean.
Yikes! Forgot the obvious: it’s organic. The cause me to be more thoughtful (each order points out how far my food travelled). They teach me about something I care about – eating better, in a way that’s better for the planet too.
Readers: Any businesses that you use, that would get a rave review from you? esp. any ‘green’ businesses?
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Update: A former client just told me SPUD included me in this week’s ‘website of the week’! That’ s too funny! and I want to be extremely clear – this is a completely unpaid for, unsolicited post. I like them a lot, pure and simple.
Food-wise, I’ll have to applaud Dolce Gelato in Toronto. 697 College. Simply awesome.
Service, food, quality, value, all delicious and awesome.
In a completely different category of business, Telus.
Simply because when I call customer service, they remind me of your 5-pt list above, only for cell phones.
It might help that they’re the scrappy underdog in Ontario compared to the big old behemoth out West, but whenever anything hasn’t gone right, they’ve fixed it.
I’ve also received excellent service from a similar company in Ottawa called Ottawa Organics (http://www.ottawaorganics.com/).
They have decent prices and excellent customer service. Overall, it has been an excellent experience for us.
@krupo – good to hear that a western biz is delivering, back east
I wonder … is it possible, ever, for a small, great company to get big and still stay great? (hmmm.. Google is still great for the end-user. So maybe there is hope).
@quick lunar cop – tx for dropping by! And I’m glad you have also found n organic delivery service.
Spud.ca sounds fabulous! I checked out their website and their prices … and if I didn’t have such a tight grocery budget, I would definitely use this service. I buy all my produce at a local grocery store, so everything is significantly cheaper for me than buying organic at the Safeway or Save-On. Too bad. At least buying produce from local, family-run stores is a step in the right direction for me.
@krystal – if you have a great local shop, all the more power to you. I live in gastown/dtes, so getting fresh, quality produce is difficult. Like you, I’m budget conscious, so order it only every 2 weeks. Even at that, it feels like a bit of a splurge. But I know if I didn’t order, I’d eat a lot more unhealthy stuff, so that settles the deal for me.