Thursday, April 23, 2009

Good Customer Service at LensCrafters

Over the course of the past 18 hours, I have had two distinctly different customer service experiences. I would tell the tale of the customer service at both companies, but rather than dwell on the terrible (Verizon), I thought it would be better to focus on the remarkable (LensCrafters).

Long story short - LensCrafters adjusted my bent sunglasses at no cost, even after telling them that I hadn't purchased the sunglasses there.

I have had this pair of prescription Oakley sunglasses for many years. I recall paying north of $400 for the lenses and frames. Not exactly cheap.

During the Italy trip in the fall of 2007, one of the arms broke off. I used some duct tape for the rest of the trip and upon my return, paid an optical shop in Kenmore Square $60 to do a crappy repair job. They were returned to me kinda crooked and with lenses that clearly did not fit into the frames properly. I dealt with it, though was unhappy.

After my eye surgery in February, my prescription understandably changed in my left eye. Rather than purchase an entire new pair, I brought them to King Optical in Braintree, who charged me $100 for brand new lenses. The optician saw how poorly the present lenses fit, saw that the frames were crooked, and said he'd return them to me good as new. He did just that.

Fast forward to this past weekend. I was playing flag football. During the organized fall league, I play defensive cornerback, my job basically being to bump receivers off the line and protect my zone. On Saturday, since the teams were smaller and it was a pickup game, we played both offense and defense.

On offense, I had a few series as receiver, and a few as lineman. As a lineman, my job was to block a guy running at me with a 5 yard start. I wasn't too keen on this position.

Stupid me was also wearing my sunglasses.

I didn't wear them during the fall season, so I'm not sure why I elected to do so on Saturday.

While blocking someone, I was blindsided by someone else from the left, resulting in my mini-black eye and, once again, crooked Oakleys. Grrr.

Of course, frugal me, remembering that these things cost $400 a number of years ago, decided that they needed yet another repair rather than me needing a brand new pair.

So I found my way into LensCrafters on Boylston St. this afternoon. I walked in and was promptly greeted. I explained that my glasses needed some readjusting. Since they were not purchased at LensCrafters, they would not be responsible if any damage occurred during the readjustment, but they said they could certainly adjust them as I waited.

I asked how much it would cost.

"Oh, it's free."

"Free?"

"Yep. You could make a donation of used eyewear if you'd like."

Wow. Awesome. I love free.

LensCrafters did not HAVE to provide this free service. I was willing to spend another $50-$60 on an adjustment...I didn't know how much it would cost.

But they did.

THAT'S the way to get a customer. I'm certainly going to remember this when I need a new pair of glasses, and will make LensCrafters my first stop. They didn't earn any revenue from me today, but will in the future.

Oh, and I'm certainly going to donate a few pairs of older eyeglasses for their charity.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a touching story. I laughed, I cried, I threw up in my mouth a little.

And thanks so much for the beautiful picture of your stubble.

testadizuccone said...

I'm glad to hear you had a good customer service experience at LensCrafters. I swore them off last year after a different kind of experience. A few months after the warranty -- I forget what it is, 12 months? -- wore off on an expensive pair of prescription progressive sunglasses I had purchased there, the tint began to peel off. I had treated these expensive shades with kid gloves -- always keeping them in a hard case when I wasn't wearing them, washing them only with Ivory soap, and wiping them only with a soft towel or eyeglass cloth. LensCrafters insisted that neither their product or workmanship was faulty, although, after I wrote a letter, they finally offered me warranty pricing (still $180 out-of-pocket for me) to replace the lenses. Guess what -- when I went to pick up my glasses with their new lenses, I mentioned to the associate who was assisting me what had happened to the original lenses. She apologized, and said that they had received a "bad batch" of tinted lenses around the time that I had originally purchased my glasses. I was furious, and fired off another letter to LensCrafters, explaining why, after more than 25 years, I would no longer be a customer. I'm not surprised that I haven't heard back.

Jason said...

Customer service is a strange animal - people have different experiences at the same companies all the time. I'm a huge believer in word-of-mouth, and love reading or hearing about personal accounts from consumers like us. It's important to weigh the good with the bad, and make a decision based on all that information. I don't believe people will flock to LensCrafters because of my posting, nor do I think that they will avoid the Publick House because it's on my Veto List and I think that they suck. But if my experience, good or bad, can help someone else make a determination into patronizing a business or not, then awesome.