More Flies with Honey

Looking through some old emails from some months ago I came across one that had been completely forgotten about. I read through it thoroughly and had to chuckle as it reminded me of the situation as to why it was written in the first place.

          It was about a year ago, and not too long after finishing my last rounds of treatment at the Cancer center when my taste buds first began showing minimal signs of functioning again so I decided to attempt a morning cup of coffee. The first one in a considerable amount of time I might add, and rather anticipated. This is when our coffee machine took a turn for the worse and I took it upon myself to craft a well worded letter to the manufacturer asking for their assistance. Without the usual finger wagging.

          Fielding customer complaints for a living must be one of the most thankless jobs on the planet. Having a constant barrage of blame and rage expelled upon you both hourly and day after day must take a toll on a person’s perception of the general public. I can only assume that it takes a rather strong person to not allow that amount of negativity into their own personal space.

          With that in mind I generated my letter with a touch of levity as to, at the very least, not be one of those irate dissatisfied customers, but also give them a break from it all and possibly make them smile a little.

          Here is the email as I sent it. Ok so I changed the name of the town for this blog entry. Sue me.

Keurig B70 Brewing System with a bad attitude

Dear Sir or Madam,

A little more than a year ago I purchased a Keurig® B70 Platinum Brewing System from Costco here in Happyville, Canada. The price seems to have dropped considerably from what I had paid at the time which was around $159.00 if I remember correctly. But that in itself is not the main issue of my concern but troubling all the same.

We had enjoyed using your coffee machine for the many conveniences and reasons we had purchased it in the first place. Unfortunately that was short lived.

Not long after, I was diagnosed with cancer in my neck and throat. I will not go into great detail regarding this but needless to say that the machine went unused for some time due to my inability to swallow properly as well as other throat sensitivities. 

About a month ago we decided to turn on the coffee machine and brew what was to be my first cup of morning goodness in about 7 months.

Well, the machine performed perfectly as expected for the first week and then began a rapid nose dive into an unstoppable spiral of demise. I must state that we would brew anywhere from 2 to 6 cups of coffee per day.

Over the course of that week it would brew slower each time to the point of taking longer than 3 minutes to complete a cycle. By the end of the week the "Descale" display was suddenly present. Following the "Keurig Brewer De-scaling Instructions" directions from your website, the machine was, or so we thought, systematically descaled to the satisfaction of all concerned. This proved to be untrue.

The machine in question began to perform worse than previous. It would only brew half of a cup and take a considerable amount of time doing so. I should also mention that the brewing cycle was considerably louder than before as if the machine was begrudgingly doing the task at hand. We then repeated the descale process as suggested in the instructions to no avail. 

Presently our machine is no longer cooperating and refuses to dispense anything resembling a drinkable cup of coffee.

Returning it to Costco appears to be out of the question as we no longer have the original packaging and the receipt seems to have been misplaced. Probably was in the box we no longer have.

Is there anything you may be able to help with in this situation?

Thank you in advance,

          By the afternoon on that very same day I received a phone call from a customer serviced agent with regards to this email. She actually said she “was calling to discuss the coffee machine with a bad attitude”.

I was informed that she and a few of her coworkers got a bit of a chuckle from my submission and had to respond to it right away. I thanked her and also expressed my delight and surprise for replying so swiftly. It’s rather unusual to get such a quick response over a negative situation.

          This now led to images of my email being forwarded around as giggles are heard intermittently from various cubicles within the office space. Insert your own visual here.

          After a short comment and introduction session she handled my issue with the courtesy, respect and professionalism that anyone would welcome. Within a matter of minutes she not only had addressed the issue but also in a knowledgeable fashion explained possible causes and future solutions to these and similar issues. She then went beyond that and offered a replacement machine in exchange for the faulty one, postage prepaid no less.

To make a long story short, the replacement arrived in less than a week to our delight and surprise.

          I have to say that I was truly taken aback from the friendly and prompt service that I experienced through this. It makes me wonder if this transaction would have been handled any differently if I had written an irate complaint letter instead. I like to think it would have. You do catch more flies with honey.

Regardless, my hat is tipped to the Keurig customer service team for exemplary service. A job very well done people. Thank you.