Last year in May of 2018, I bought a pair of shoes (Adidas swift run) from the Adidas store. Let me just say, they were the most comfortable shoes and most expensive shoes I ever bought. I wore them everyday to school but there was a slight issue. By November of 2018, just a few months after I bought them, there was a hole in the front of the shoe. The other shoe was fine so it’s not me. It was probably the stitch quality.
I wanted to buy another pair of shoes but my parents were not in the same boat as me. They didn’t refuse to buy me another pair but they were not too happy as I hadn’t even worn them for long. They told me that I should bring this up with Adidas Customer Service to see if they can do something about my shoes and the journey starts…
On December 26, a month after my shoes ripped, I called Adidas Customer Service. I never talked to like a professional person or whatever you call them so I was kind of nervous. I called them and told them that my shoes ripped and asked if they could do something about that. The person I was talking to made me write them an email stating all the information about my shoes like the code number, etc. They said they would get back to me ASAP.
A month after I wrote the email, I didn’t get any response back and I was still wearing the torn up shoe. I called them back and this time, the person gave me a shipping label. The label was supposed to be taped onto a box with my shoes inside of it. The shoes with a hole in it would get shipped to the Adidas Headquarters. Once the shoes arrived there, the people would send me an electronic gift card with a FULL REFUND of the shoes.
I shipped the shoes to the Adidas Headquarters on Jan 28, 2019 and in less than 2 weeks, I got a $70 gift card through my email. I was shocked. I thought they would never send me a gift card but they actually did.
The next day, I found the shoes I wanted and order them. The shoes I wanted were $140 (way out of my budget). When I went to buy them however, they were 50% of making them $70. My gift card would take care of the $70 and we would only have to pay tax (about $5). When we were checking out, my mom had an Adidas coupon that gave an additional 15% off. So cool right!!! Then the shoes costed about $60 and with $5 tax, the total cost of the shoe was $65. I used the gift card to buy the shoes and at the end, I still had $5 left on the gift card.
These shoes arrived on February 12, 2019, and they are sooooo comfortable. So why would Adidas offer such a great customer experience? Because Adidas knew I am a teenager and my value to them is huge. The technical term for that is Customer Lifetime Value or CLTV. Imagine now I will talk about this to my friends and my friends will talk to their friends and so on. Plus I will likely remain a customer with them for life. Because I know that if something goes wrong with my shoes, I can just give them a call and they will do whatever it takes to make sure their customer is happy and always has a pair or two of shoes to wear.
Cover image credit – Shawn Arron, Flickr