The summer is a difficult time for the . Not only is there an elevated need for blood – there are more accidents and people are out of the house more – but there's a short supply: the blood drives that take place at high schools and colleges don't occur in the summer, and even regular donors go on vacation, so maybe they give every 12 weeks instead of every eight.
I had a really busy spring, and didn't make it for my eight-week donation, so they started calling me. Daily. Sometimes twice a day, six days a week.
Eventually, I complained via , just throwing it out there. A couple of people said they had the same problem. And while the Red Cross didn't respond via one of their Twitter accounts, the phone calls stopped.
Then, today, in the mail, I got a letter from Barbara Wheeler, the Manager of Operations for the Regional Telerecruitment Department for the New York-Penn Region. It started like this:
Please accept our sincerest apologies regarding the excessive number of recruitment calls you have received for blood drives in your area. We deeply regret the inconvenience these calls have caused.
The letter goes on to say they've taken me off their recruitment call list, and that they're looking at their system for calling people.
What this means is, not only did they listen to me, they heard me on a medium I wasn't sure they were using and took the time to look me up in their system. After they found me, they drafted a letter, but waited to be sure they had an actual solution in place to send it.
That's some really good customer service. I'm impressed.
December 26th, 2009 at 08:33
Yay! This is Wendy Harman, social media lady for the American Red Cross. This is my favorite post about the Red Cross ever.
December 26th, 2009 at 08:35
That was pretty good customer service, I must say. I haven’t given blood since I became a diabetic, and then went on insulin about 18 months ago. But it seems that diabetics can give blood, even if it’s got a high glucose content; how about that.
I’ll also admit that every time I used to give blood I went into a panic, but I always knew there were cookies and apple juice at the end. Maybe I’ll think about donating again, especially if I know they’re not going to badger me for more.
September 24th, 2010 at 07:29
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Sheldon Levine, Ellie Mixter-Keller and Becky B, Josh Shear. Josh Shear said: Here's a story about a positive experience I had with a brand after complaining publicly on Twitter. #cmgrchat [...]