Friday, August 11, 2006

Kindness of Strangers

When I got home yesterday, I had a package waiting for me on my doorstep from La Crème Beauty. I couldn’t remember if I ordered anything from them. I’m always starting to place orders for samples and then deleting them at the last minute, but maybe this time I had clicked through without realizing…could it be possible? When I got into the house, Bob was acting a little suspicious (“Oh! Look at that! A package!”…like it was unusual for me to get a package from such a place), so I thought maybe he’d sent me a little gift.

And when I opened it, I found it was indeed a gift, but not from Bob! To my great surprise (and delight), it turned out that Autumn at La Crème Beauty had read in my blog (thank you for reading, Autumn!) about the mix up that occurred when I ordered Majenty’s Embrace the Day from them and instead received After Hours. It took me such a long time to discover what had happened, and I liked After Hours so much, I saw no reason to complain. People make honest mistakes, and I had already used the After Hours several times…it was all good!

But after reading about what happened, Autumn was kind enough to send me a sample of Embrace the Day (which I’m wearing today and will write about soon), along with Hidden Cove and a little box full of several other lovely samples (wrapped prettily in purple tissue) I’ve had on my list to try, along with a sweet letter offering her apologies for the mix up. This absolutely made my day! Terrific customer service is apparently alive and well at La Crème Beauty. After the horrible time I had with my beloved Anthropologie, I admit I’m a little wary. But this has renewed my faith. Autumn simply could have read about what happened, cringed in embarrassment for a few seconds, and then gone on with her life, but instead she chose to reach out. And as for me: I had planned to order from them again, even without this lovely gesture. But now you can be sure they have a loyal customer. Just the letter alone would have been enough.

So if someone is rude to you at a store, or you have a bad online shopping experience, try to take heart in the fact that there are people out there who must love their jobs and care about their customers. (And who also have great taste in music. You got to see The Raconteurs, Autumn?! I am jealous…but I’m glad it was fun. Nothing worse than going to see what you think will be a great band and they turn out to be meh.)