Comments

LL Bean must be to Tom what Braum's is to me. I grew up loving their products and not so much loving their service. How long can a great product keep a company with crappy service alive.

Posted by Robert Floyd at November 29, 2005 2:52 PM

Tom,
May I recommend JCPenney.com??? Or use same information to call the catalog division, if you prefer.
Try it out and give me your review, off blog if you like. I believe that you'll come away with a great experience.
In the interest of full disclosure, I work in the bricks and mortars store side.
Good luck and great holidays to you and yours.
L.E.M.

Posted by lem at November 29, 2005 4:03 PM

Robert,

With you on that one. We love Braum's milk, but there are certain locations we will not even patronize anymore because of the lousy (and sometimes outright rude) service. Sad too. Done right, they could have been the Starbucks of Ice Cream/Dairy.

From a fellow Okie.

Posted by DUST!N at November 29, 2005 4:03 PM

This is very sad. I didn't realize LL Bean's out of stock situation was widespread. I was looking for a coat, it was out of stock, I went elsewere. They must be losing a ton of business this way.

-Bryan

Posted by b2b resource at November 29, 2005 10:40 PM

Ditto on LL Bean.

Same thing every holiday season. My poor wife always ends up with the color she doesn't want.

Posted by Scott at November 30, 2005 8:26 AM

Let me chime in with a positive reference: Land's End. Great on the phone, by mail, or through the internet. Good service, good prices, good clothes. Careful, though, because Land's End sends a LOT of catalogs, many of which are for clearance and overstocked items, and you may find items from these catalogs are frequently out of stock. Otherwise, most items have been there when ordered.

Posted by Mike at November 30, 2005 8:56 AM

I must be the person driving Bean out of stock. I never have that problem. Or maybe I'm just ordering all the uncool stuff in all the ugly colors.

Posted by Nancy R. at November 30, 2005 9:06 AM

Mike, great to hear that one part of Sears is functioning well!

Posted by tom peters at November 30, 2005 11:07 AM

Nancy R, cut the rest of us a little slack!(FYI, mine was hyper-uncool.)

Posted by tom peters at November 30, 2005 11:08 AM

Tom: So now I'm curious, what was the hyper-uncool thing you couldn't order. (And this year it's not my fault if LLB is out of stock. All my money is going to grad school.)

Posted by Nancy R. at November 30, 2005 11:35 AM

Very garden variety footware--one was LL's propriety brand (which makes it even worse).

Posted by tom peters at November 30, 2005 12:04 PM

Ye Gods! "footware' and "propriety" in one sentence - are you trying to take the heat off Steve?

Posted by Ciaran McCabe at November 30, 2005 12:19 PM

ciaran, i think tom's just having a bad grammar day.

Posted by erik at November 30, 2005 4:24 PM

It's just that you don't get a chance to catch Homer nodding every day.

Posted by Ciaran McCabe at November 30, 2005 5:44 PM

true. very true.

Posted by erik hansen at November 30, 2005 9:44 PM

I was surprised to hear that there are still businesses where humans answer the phone right away. (I guess I only call service centers. I spent 25 minutes getting bounced around by AOL last night, winding up where I started. But that's a normal night.) I just found an interesting article on automated phone systems: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002606799_voicemail06.html Apparently Nordstrom and Southwest Airlines are two more companies that have people answering the phone right away.

Posted by John O'Leary at December 1, 2005 1:11 AM

John, our beloved (and beloved by customers) (and belovedly profitable) pals at Commerce Bank have no non-realtime human intermediaries. It's all real, all fast!

Posted by tom peters at December 1, 2005 10:37 AM

Ditto, Bean Doesn't Get Wow!

Poor Execution! Last year I got a sizable Bean gift certificate - couldn't get 1 of many common items I wanted over several months. Don't have this problem with Amazon.

Obnoxious! First thing they demanded was an email (told me it was for confirmation) but put me on a spam list.

Insulting! The worst sin. Wrote the CEO (now how many customers actually take the time to write the CEO!) - blatantly intercepted by "Asst to President" clown form letter and phone call - just offered to "help" me find other unwanted in-stock inventory. Geez!

Arrogant! Upon insistence, they did send money back but refuse to remove me from spam list.

Period! Their quality merchandise is wasted - they have lost me and my family as loyal customers. Like Ford & GM, losing x% market share/year doesn't ring alarms but how many years till you're in serious trouble!

Posted by John Taber at December 4, 2005 1:01 PM

John T, frankly I think LL's quality, while good, is also no longer a differentiator, or at least not much of one. I'll take EMS or REI, for example.

Posted by tom peters at December 4, 2005 11:39 PM

I tried Banana Republic online for the first time, and was pleasently suprised to see how helpful and informative they were with what they had or did not have in stock. The ordering process went smoothly and they have a new fan...

However, being a 6'10" MBA student heading to Corporate America, I was very disapointed that even online they didn't have dress shoes in any sizes above 13!!!!

Anyone know where I can find a good selection of dress shoes online in larger sizes?

Thanks, Happy Holidays!

Posted by Patrick at December 6, 2005 12:27 PM