Friday, November 20, 2009

Fabulous Customer Service, Part 2

This must be my week for getting wonderful, unexpected treatment from retail stores! This afternoon I went to Whole Foods to look for a few unusual ingredients I knew I wouldn't find at Kroger. I just finally made it to Whole Foods for the first time a month or two ago, and oh, is that a grocery shopping experience. I so wish the closest one wasn't a 50-minute drive away...though maybe it's best for my grocery budget that it is!

Anyway, it was just a quick trip (especially because Elijah is SO not into grocery shopping at the moment), but I had several things I wanted to accomplish. I was hoping to get a good deal on organic apples to make applesauce and apple chips, and I wanted to pick up more Kerrygold butter. I also had Steve with me, for his first trip to Whole Foods, because we have a friend from church who is a cheese buyer there and Steve loves cheese :)

Why am I telling you all these details? I have no idea. You're used to it by now, I suppose. Most importantly, I had a few ingredients I needed for some baking experiments I plan to conduct this weekend (I'll explain more soon, if it goes well). I asked the first person I saw where I might find these, and he said that while the first two were across the street at Whole Foods Body, he would search for the coconut flour I wanted.

A few minutes later, he came back with a little bag of the flour. "This is the only kind we have," he said, and paused. "Have you ever used coconut flour before?" I said I hadn't, and he continued, "because it's $7 for this little bag." I smiled and said that didn't surprise me, since I had priced it online. But he proceeded to cross out the barcode with a pen and say, "I'm going to give you this bag for free, so you can try it out and see if you like it."

What?!? I totally was not expecting that kind of generosity! So I walked out of Whole Foods with a free bag of coconut flour, nine pounds of inexpensive, organic Cameo apples, a few pounds of high-quality grassfed butter, and all the ingredients for my kitchen experiment...and lots of goodwill toward/desire to shop at Whole Foods again. Yay for above-and-beyond customer service!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Yeah for Whole Foods!! Did you hit Trader Joe's while you were there? We're going there tomorrow. :)

Amy said...

I didn't, Marcy...I *wanted* to--I haven't ever been to Trader Joe's--but we didn't have time to stop both places.

Anonymous said...

Hmm...will some of this experiment come to Ohio for Thanksgiving?