Personal Purple Goldfish – the Tervis Company
So after browsing this blog thoroughly and learning about what a Purple Goldfish is, I started thinking about companies that I have had a great experience with. Sadly, fantastic customer service is not that easy to come by. The point of the Purple Goldfish project is to highlight awesome companies, and I can only hope that businesses take notice and start to improve their policies and customer service offerings as well.
I often find myself paying extra attention to the policies and actions of companies whose customer service departments I encounter. Every company highlights their business news that is good, but what about the company that just goes out of their way for the good of the customer? I recently had a fantastic customer service experience that I wanted to share.
I have long had a fondness for cups (tumblers) made by a company called Tervis. They are a relatively local business for me (located in Venice, FL) and it always feels good to support a local company.Tervis makes plastic insulated tumblers in several different sizes. In recent years, they have expanded their “collection” to include tumblers for kids, those with sports logos, and water bottles. These tumblers retail anywhere from $11 to $25 each, so they are probably a little pricier than your typical beverage container. They also have something of a following, and many people consider themselves to be collectors!
I have always noticed that a prominently displayed sticker on each cup that I have bought touts their lifetime warranty. Now I’m not sure about everyone else, but I am nearly always skeptical when I see something regarding a lifetime warranty or guarantee. Often there is a catch, or sometimes the company requires that you provide an original sales slip or receipt in order to utilize the warranty.
So when a few of my cups got big bubbles in the plastic from being in the dishwasher, I remembered the warranty stickers. I thought it couldn’t hurt to check it out, so I Googled the company’s return policy. Much to my surprise, all I had to do was pack the cups up in a box with a return slip I printed from the Internet. The only information I had to provide for the slip was what kind of tumblers I was sending back, and what kind I wanted in return. I could even choose new designs for the cups that would be sent back to me.
I paid my whopping $6 at the post office to ship the 6 cups I was returning to Venice. I’ll admit, I was still pretty skeptical about whether or not I would get new ones back. I figured that the worst that would happen would be that I was out $6. Tervis says on their website that it takes four to six weeks to send the new tumblers. I waited – probably not so patiently – for the next five weeks. I get home after work on a Friday and sure enough, there is a box containing 6 brand new tumblers! Two of them even had lids, which Tervis specifically says they do not warranty.
Since I got the tumblers back, I’ve done some research (by asking family and friends) about this policy. Every person I talked to had the same experience as me. One even mentioned that he lives near a brick and mortar Tervis store, and can take his tumblers to be exchanged any time, for any reason. I also checked out the Tervis Facebook page, which has lots of great customer service stories and thank-you messages from happy customers. I definitely gave them a shout-out on Facebook for their awesome customer service and product!