Poppin In

I want to write a quick follow-up to my Pharmaphenalia post. For those who missed it, I selflessly sacrificed my tried and true Zyprexa clipboard, in the name of not running ads for Eli Lilly. And I purchased a clipboard from Poppin, to replace it.

I also bought a few other things for my office, including these cool pens:

They write decently, although they were a little scratchy to begin with, but that seems to have smoothed out. The thing is, I write a lot of process notes, so I started going through them pretty quickly. I tried to find refills for them, but I couldn't, so I emailed Poppin about it. They didn't get back to me, so I kind of forgot about it (they are, after all, just pens, and cheap, at that).

Then, on Friday, I got this email:

First of all, I want to say how sorry I am that this email is so incredibly delayed. I got your original email, wrote you what I consider to be an awesome response, hit send but just found out it never went through! I am so sorry we left you hanging! Here is what I originally had to say about our Gel Luxe Pens. 

Those pens are actually intended to be single use. But, I did do some digging and searching with our product team to hunt down replacement cartridges and unfortunately came up short. They don't quite fit standard refills and I even took one of our Luxe pens to the art and stationary store next to our office hoping they might have a suggestion but no such luck.

Your best bet is to get some brand new ones from us! Since my email never got out to you and I know exactly how great those pens are, I am going to make sure that is exactly what happens. I am sending you two boxes of our White Gel Luxe Pens plus a Pen Cup so you have somewhere to put them...on us! I want you writing happy and I would hate for you to think that your email was ignored.

This is my definition of exceptional customer service. And I've since received another email letting me know that the package has been shipped.

The expression, "The customer is always right," was coined by Sears President, Julius Rosenwald. It seems like the kind of idea that shouldn't need to be coined as an expression, it should just be intuitive. But then, as now, it was necessary. 

And Poppin seems to get it. Insurance companies could take a lesson from them.