By Carmen Ferris
MCCA - Manager, Education & Development
You may be asking yourself, who is Tyler? Let me tell you a story about Tyler and how he saved my son’s birthday.
Last year, my son really wanted a pair of Heely’s for his birthday. For those of you who may not know, Heely’s are the shoes that have the wheel in the heel. I told him I was not getting him these shoes because he would use them once and then be done with them. After repeated requests, I asked my parents to look for a pair as they happened to be in Vegas at that time. Sure enough they found a pair and they decided this would be their birthday present to him.
Fast forward to his birthday supper, he opens the shoes and is so excited! He tries them on and they are too small. Not wanting to see my son crushed on his birthday I asked my parent’s what store they got them from. Turns out they got them from Famous Footwear. Fortunately, we have one in Winnipeg. Feeling cautiously hopeful that I would be able to exchange the shoes I called the store to see if this is possible. Enter Tyler.
Tyler answers the call and listens patiently while I explain the situation. He tells me the bad news – I can’t make the exchange. Disappointed, I thanked him and was preparing to hang up the phone when I hear Tyler say but let me explain why. I must admit that I was taken off guard as I have been conditioned to accept minimum customer service when interacting with a retail store over the phone.
Tyler explained the reason they were unable to do the exchange was because of the SKU numbers being different from one country to another. Armed with this knowledge I asked if it would be possible for me to exchange the shoes at their location in Grand Forks. He asked if he could call be back as he was going to do some investigation to see what could be done. I gave him my info, and Tyler committed to getting back to me within a couple of hours. I hung up the phone and quite honestly thought I would never hear back from Tyler.
Thirty minutes later my phone rings and it is Tyler with a plan in place to exchange the shoes. His first call was to their head office to see if an exception could be made to make a straight exchange at the Winnipeg location, this was not possible. He then placed a call to the Grand Forks location and explained the situation to the store manager, confirmed that they had the correct size in stock and made sure they would be there in the next couple of weeks. He provided me with the name of the store manager in the US, who I was to ask for if I had any difficulty making the exchange. He also provided me with her contact information in case I had any further questions or concerns. That weekend a friend was going to Grand Forks and exchanged the shoes for me, I asked if there was any difficulty and she said no – the staff were fully aware of the situation and the process was painless.
Tyler did more than the bare minimum; he took the time to educate me and find a resolution to the situation. As a result my son got his birthday gift, which he used once and hasn’t touched since.
So who is Tyler? Tyler is a customer service super star!
