We Said We’d Be There

There are days in business when everything goes according to plan.

And then there are days when the T-shirts don’t arrive, two-thirds of the shoes are missing, the bridge you need to cross is under a wind advisory, the alternate route adds hours to your trip, the road to your hotel floods—and the person in the room next door snores loudly enough to penetrate the wall.

This is a story about the second kind of day.

Last week, we were preparing for an on-site sale at Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. We love our Riverside customers, and Shore Memorial is always a location we look forward to visiting.

We knew this particular sale would require a little extra work. Riverside’s marketing team had recently changed some of the parameters for the T-shirts we sell at our events, which meant we needed to pivot quickly. Once our new prints were approved, we paid to have them shipped two-day air.

The prints arrived.

The T-shirts did not.

No problem. Well, technically, it was a problem. But problems are really just decisions waiting to be made.

Heidi, who handles our garment printing, headed to Michael’s and bought the shirts we needed at full retail price. Was that our preferred way of sourcing inventory?

Absolutely not.

Were our customers going to have their shirts?

Absolutely.

Anything for our customers.

Then came the Brooks shipment.

We had three boxes of shoes coming for the sale. One arrived.

At that point, you can either spend your time complaining about the two boxes you don’t have or start figuring out what you can do with the one you do.

So we pieced together what we could, loaded the trailer and prepared to head to the Eastern Shore.

And Then the Wind Started Blowing

Our normal route would take us across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Unfortunately, high winds made that impossible with the trailer.

There is another way to the Eastern Shore from Norfolk.

It is not a short other way.

We rushed home, dropped off my car, grabbed our suitcases and started what became an approximately eight-hour drive to Chincoteague.  

Somewhere in the scramble, Rich forgot his toiletries bag.

At this point, I believe the universe was just checking to see how committed we really were.

But we said we’d be there.

So we kept driving.

Eight hours later, tired and more than ready to get into our hotel room, we finally approached Chincoteague.

And discovered that Route 175—the only road onto the island—was closed because of flooding.

Of course it was.

Because apparently the missing shirts, missing shoes, wind advisory, eight-hour drive and forgotten toiletries were merely the opening acts.

So we got back in the truck and drove another 45 minutes to the next closest hotel, got checked in and headed up to our room to sleep.

And that's when I heard it.

Snoring.

Not Rich.

The person in the next hotel room was snoring so loudly that I could hear it clearly through the wall.

At that point, all I could do was laugh.

Tomorrow had to be better.

At 7:30 the Next Morning, I Got My Answer

We arrived at Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital ready to go.

And there were already people waiting for us.

Then more came.

And more.

Before long, the line stretched through two conference rooms.

For approximately three hours straight, there was a line of Riverside employees waiting to shop.

They had heard about our adventure. They knew we'd driven eight hours to make sure we could be there for them.

And something happened that I will remember far longer than the flooded road or the missing Brooks shipment.

Nobody complained.

Not about the line.

Not about waiting.

Not about the things we didn't have.

Instead, they were patient. They were gracious. They were excited to shop. And again and again, they told us how much they appreciated that we had made the trip.

Yesterday, somewhere along an eight-hour drive that should have taken an hour and a half, I wondered whether all of this was worth it.

At 7:30 the next morning, I had my answer.

There was a line waiting for us.

Anything for Our Customers

We talk a lot at Jeness about customer service.

But customer service isn't really tested when everything goes according to plan.

It's tested when the plan falls apart.

It's the decision to pay for expedited shipping.

It's Heidi running to Michael's because the shirts didn't arrive.

It's making the best assortment you can from one box when you were expecting three.

It's taking the long way around because the safe route isn't the convenient one.

It's continuing to drive when you're exhausted because you made a commitment to people who are expecting you.

Sometimes exceptional customer service isn't a grand gesture.

Sometimes it's simply this:

We said we'd be there. So we found a way to be there.

But this trip reminded me of something else, too.

Relationships work both ways.

We showed the employees at Riverside Shore Memorial how much they mattered to us by making that eight-hour drive.

The next morning, they showed us how much that effort mattered to them.

They waited.

They smiled.

They shopped.

They thanked us.

And after a day when seemingly everything that could go wrong found a way to do exactly that, we had one of those incredible days that reminds you why you work so hard in the first place.

So, was it worth it?

Every mile.

Every inconvenience.

Every last-minute problem.

Every dollar spent on emergency T-shirts.

Even the snoring.

Okay.

Maybe not the snoring.

But everything else?Absolutely.

We said we'd be there.

And we were.