Now that Christmas is over, I have stuffed myself beyond believe, unwrapped an ungodly amount of presents (well, not mine, but helping the kids with theirs and cleaning up all the wrapping paper), the inevitable holiday tradition of returns has commenced. It never fails that at least one thing I purchase has to be returned, and this Christmas is no exception.

I do not need to bore you with all the details of what the present was and why it needed to be returned, but needless to say I had to return a gift that I purchased for my wife. I purchased the gift from a really cool outdoors web site, Moosejaw. The return process was pretty straightforward, couple of easy steps and I was on my way. The thing that stuck out in my mind about the process was the fact that Moosejaw went above and beyond the call of duty with their e-mail communications with me. Not only did they e-mail me to notify me that they knew that I was returning a package, but they went on to send me a follow up letting me know that they had received it and were processing it. This is where I believe they went the extra mile by e-mailing me a cheeky, fun follow up:

Hey there -

Just wanted to let you know that our sources at the Board of Yellow Turtles (BOYT) told us that you have a return or exchange on the way to the Moosejaw warehouse. We just wanted to assure you that at Moosejaw, we process your return/exchange on the day that we receive your package.

As soon as we process your return we’ll send you an email receipt confirming that we received your package and processed your return/exchange. Keep in mind, we have found that it takes anywhere from 10-14 business days for a package to get back to us from our customers. Sorry for putting that in bold but we thought it was important.

Our returns system was voted fourth best in the world. Needless to say, we are very proud.

Love the Madness.

Moosejaw

This is what it is all about, making the customer feel like they are one with the company, that they are just one of the bunch. What would you rather get, and e-mail like this, or one like this:

Dear Will Kern,

This email confirms that you have paid eBay, Inc (support@ebay.com) $X.XX USD using PayPal.

Which would you rather receive, yeah, that is what I thought. Good customer communications is key, either you get it or you don’t, hopefully you (your company) does.