Greenling is the local and organic food delivery service I use in Austin, Texas. No company has ever impressed me more with their customer support.
They make every step easy: I can manage my orders online through their killer site, deliveries come right to my door, and everything is guaranteed. (My teammate Merissa uses Greenling too, and once live-chatted with a rep after receiving some apples that had gone soft—they apologized, refunded the charge on the spot and gave her 10 percent off her next order.) When I first became a customer, they checked in with me to make sure everything was going well. My delivery guy is always cheerful and asks whether there’s anything else they can do.
Greenling claims “We believe good relationships are the foundation for every successful service and we build them to last.” And they mean it! I’m housesitting for my friend Andy, and agreed to show his place to a couple potential tenants, Kristen and Jeff. They were really nice, and noticed my Greenling box in the kitchen—turned out Jeff works for Greenling, and we launched into a conversation about persimmons. A couple days later, I got this email:
Hi Emily!Thanks for taking the time to show Kristen and I Andy’s home the other day! We really appreciate it and are excited about living there!
Since you are such an awesome Greenling customer I wanted to pass along a coupon for you to use as well. The next time you check out use this coupon and you will get 25% off of your next order from us :)
Hope those persimmons were awesome!
Take care,
Jeff Waltrip, Smoothie Operator
How cool is that? He got my email address from Andy so he could send me a coupon—and it was a killer email, at that. Smoothie Operator for the win!
What’s the last support experience that rocked your world?
Ryan Bradley
on 01 Oct 12Sounds like a great company. I’ve always said that the best way to separate yourself from the big boys is to give 110% on all of the little things that customers have to deal with. If your competition does free shipping, do free shipping with signature, etc.
Anvil
on 02 Oct 12Sorry but some blog entries on 37signals looks like an advertising!
Michael
on 02 Oct 12The discount plus the friendliness makes it work. It doesn’t even have to be a big discount. The 10% feels as good as the 25%. Why is that?
On the other hand, the more friendliness and personableness, the better.
Jessica W
on 02 Oct 12@Emily
Thanks Emily for setting the expectation that I should easily be able to get 25% off anytime.
Anything less, sounds like I’m paying too much.
Amanda
on 02 Oct 12I am starting to become a bit skeptical about companies that offer such common and extreme discounts. I’ve been finding that as soon as I become attached to a company that has wooed me in using such approaches, they end up heading south (most recent ex: IndiJeans; another: Peerflix). The customer service and the product might be great, but if their business model isn’t sound, is it worth it for me to get attached?
Aurélien
on 02 Oct 12Speaking about vegetables and customer service, we suscribed to a local farmers association. You pay a fixed price for 10 x crates of locally produced fruits & vegetables. Everything comes from less than 80km and is a seasonable. That way my kids can learn that you can’t eat tomatoes or strawberry during winter and won’t ruin our planet :)
The service is handled by one exeptionnal woman, she take every customer email and she send us the list of the fruits & vegetables available this week, recipies that goes along and possibility to exange part of the basket. She’s tracking everyone request, and ask for feedback on last week order. At the place she discuss about life, kids (she reminds everyone’s name!). They offered free vegetable for the annual soup contest festival and on top of everything, they provide a discount if you take the wooden crate back (0.50€).
This is, by far, my favorite service.
Christoffer Hallas
on 02 Oct 12Don’t think I ever actually had one.
Mike
on 02 Oct 12I agree with Amanda. Providing a discount when you screwed up or just for being nice isn’t necessarily “good” customer service. Preventing the slip up or providing helpful information seems like a better (and perhaps cheaper) way to support customers.
Tony
on 02 Oct 12You gotta think he was making the apartment play with the discount. Which is ok, I would do the same.
I posted on bonobos’ facebook page at 7pm PST (NY based) that chrome was rendering one of their pages as insecure. Actually, the page where I put in my CC info, I think maybe because of some JS. I also added that it prevented me from buying.
The facebook community manager explained the issue and by 9pm PST (midnight their time), the issue was resolved. And I was able to buy pants with peace of mind even though nothing was “technically” wrong with their payment processing. They were were able to fix an emotional bug.
note: I don’t actually remember what the probably was but I remember them solving it and solving it well. Nice little takeaway for customer support.
Jason Stoddard
on 02 Oct 12Disclaimer: My wife and I are former Greenling customers. We love the service, love the food stuff they source, but given our transition as newlyweds, we forced ourselves to cut back. One goal is to resubscribe to Greenling next Spring. I’m also friends with Greenling’s Founder and CEO. I’m partial if not outright bias and bullish on all things Greenling.
Emily, thanks for the deserved recognition of a great business. I was compelled to comment because some of the naysayer-responders…
So much of what I’m reading in comments these days is myopic. I get it that in some cases the initiatives, people and concepts featured do not succinctly line up with (in this case) the 37signals brand-association, but perhaps you’re missing the bigger picture.
ReFrame: Greenling is a lot of things to a lot of different people; the functional problem in the communities they serve is not trivial. The narrative around Greenling’s customer service is the gateway to a conversation not only about customer loyalty and retention but bridging operations, distribution and sales in real time… of PERISHABLE farm-to-table FOOD (not jeans, not DVDs, not books, not shoes) in a climate that exceeds 90 degrees fahrenheit 8 months out of the year, within an economic system/ unnatural monopoly designed to ensure Greenling fails. And yet Greenling does it profitably.
You think Jason Fried and gang want any part of reworking that? Doubtful. But they do have the wherewithal to identify reworked solutions to non-trivial problems, package examples and initiatives nicely and succinctly in a blog post about customer service, thus compelling the reader to dig in a little deeper and explore real-world, empirical solutions to problems that perhaps refine your thinking and doing around solving your own problems.
Dig deeper and do good work.
Tony
on 02 Oct 12*problem
Grammar Troll
on 02 Oct 12And no one is going to comment on how “Kristen and I” should be “Kristen and me”? Poor grammar is not part of a world-class customer experience.
Anti Grammer Troll
on 02 Oct 12I hate to say it, but the Grammer Troll is right http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/i-or-me
Ade
on 03 Oct 12I am starting to become a bit skeptical about companies that offer such common and extreme discounts.
I often think it’s fair enough. Once you’re a customer they don’t have the same customer acquisition costs.
Jon
on 03 Oct 12Geico is another that offers extremely good customer service, which is amazing, because they are a large company. The last couple times I called them, I felt like I was talking to the concierge at a 5 star hotel. Agilent is another company that I admire for great service. Their tech support is by far the best I’ve ever encountered. They will go to the ends of the earth to solve a problem with their products. Oh…and Costco returns dept – hard to beat being able to return a bed 10 years after you bought it, with no questions asked, and receive a full refund.
Pesticides are good
on 05 Oct 12@Amanda: “I am starting to become a bit skeptical about companies that offer such common and extreme discounts”
That should tell you something about their gross margin. Clearly a company in organic products home delivery is top end.
Just have a look at Greenling’s website: “Onion, red—$1.29 each“
This discussion is closed.