The New CompUSA Rights a Wrong
Two weeks ago in my blog, I totally skewered CompUSA and its warranty company (found out it’s Assurant Solutions) for not doing the right thing and honoring the extended warranty I purchased for a high-definition television.
Within days of that blog post publishing, pushing it out to my Facebook, Plaxo and Twitter connections, and posting it on the Linkedin groups I belong to, I got a call from CompUSA.
Since I was driving at the time, I never did get the person's name, so let's call him Good Corporate Samaritan (Sam for short). Essentially Sam wanted me to know two things:
- the CompUSA I purchased my TV and extended warranty from wasn't in business anymore and that the new CompUSA had nothing to do with the old one; and
- that he'd made arrangements with the old CompUSA's warranty company for me to get a replacement TV.
Sam assured me that the new CompUSA would never treat a valued customer so shabbily. In that conversation, I told Sam that I believed heavily in the power of social media as the great equalizer. It can right many wrongs that bad companies perpetrate on their customers.
I also told Sam that once I received my replacement TV, I'd write a follow-up blog letting my readers know that I had my CompUSA’s wrong. So for Sam and all of the employees at the new CompUSA, I just wanted to let you know that I did indeed receive a replacement TV. The new CompUSA came to the rescue. Thanks Sam! Much appreciated!
That said, I'm a very lucky guy in that I have a bully pulpit with a decent-sized following to preach to (and thanks to all of you for listening, by the way).
It makes me wonder if Joe Everyman would have been as successful at getting justice from CompUSA — or from any company, for that matter — without said bully pulpit as a platform. I guess it depends on the company really, and how customer-centric it actually is.
- People:
- Joe Everyman
- Sam
Jim Gilbert has had a storied career in direct and digital marketing resulting in a burning desire to tell stories that educate, inform, and inspire marketers to new heights of success.
After years of marketing consulting, Jim decided it was time to “put his money where his mouth was" and build his own e-commerce company, Premo Natural Products, with its flagship product, Premo Guard Bed Bug & Mite Sprays. Premo in its second year is poised to eclipse 100 percent growth.
Jim has been writing for Target Marketing Group since 2006, first on the pages of Catalog Success Magazine, then as the first blogger for its online division. Jim continues to write for Total Retail.
Along the way, Jim has led the Florida Direct Marketing Association as their Marketing Chair and then three-term President, been an Adjunct Professor of Direct and Digital marketing for Miami International University, and created a lecture series, “The 9 Immutable Laws of Social Media Marketing,” which he has presented across the country at conferences and universities.
