A few weeks ago I found the perfect sundress for my brother-in-law's afternoon wedding in May. It was a 50's style A-line with a bold modern print. The tangerine was a great match for the guava & champagne wedding (I am not in the wedding but the wife of a groomsman so I don't want to exactly match, just "mesh"), and the style was perfectly conservative yet amazingly flattering for the Catholic service. I had even picked out the nude espadrilles I would wear with it! There was only one problem: it was sold out in my size by the time I went back to order it.
Story of my life. I had waited too long to purchase the dress of my dreams (at least, for this particular event) and now it was no longer available! But, I was determined that I would figure out a way to get it. Afterall, Nordstrom has one of the best customer service departments around. Surely I could make it work.
Attempt #1 to save the day: look at what other sizes are available. I had been losing a little weight, so a smaller size could work and I could always get a larger size altered (Nordstrom has free alterations for their products). Ah ha! They had the next size smaller available online (one could not be located at the stores within a 25 mi radius of my zipcode)! But, being the Savvy Shoppanista that I am, I decided that I would wake up early the next morning and have Nordstrom ship it to me from a store that it was available at rather than order it online so that I could save the shipping costs. This was my second mistake.
Attempt #2: The next morning I woke up and went to Nordstrom first thing. I had business to tend to. I ended up being about 45 minutes early, but at least I would be one of their first customers which would decrease the risk of more dresses selling out by the time I got there! I looked around the dress section to see if I could find any size of my dress, and that proved unsuccessful. So, I went to the counter where I was warmly welcomed by Joan. I pulled out my phone and opened the web browser page which I still had opened to my dress to show Joan what I was looking for. The page automatically refreshed and I saw that even my new size had sold out!! Over night?!? Really?!? I tried to keep my cool and told myself that another store would surely have it. Joan began to look up the inventory at the other stores, meanwhile I tried on two sizes of the same style & manufacturer as my dream dress. I was happy to find out that the smaller size actually fit much better than my original larger guess - woohoo! Joan came back to my dressing room and told me that she had found one location that possibly could have one dress left. I felt releif! At least, until she told me that it would be another 3 hours until we would find out because it was in California and they weren't open yet due to the time difference.
Throughout this experience, I was having a conversation with Nordstrom personnel via Twitter which gave me reassurance that this would work out in the end.
(Read tweets from bottom to top)
I could see that between my shopping skills, Joan's help, and Nordstrom's customer service something good was going to happen. And, it did! I spoke with Joan 30 minutes after the Cali store opened and she had them ship my dress directly to me free of charge! After a short celebration, I moved on to order those nude espadrilles...
The point of the story here is not to pat my own back because I got the dress I wanted despite my bad decision to wait to order it. It is to commend Nordstrom for the exceptional service they provided me with. Neither Joan nor the Twitter team were about to stop until they found me my dress. As important as discounts and bargains can sometimes be, there is nothing as awesome as the quality of service (not to mention the products) provided by high-end retailers or brands. Kudos to you, Nordstrom!
Please visit Nordstrom's website and Twitter (@Nordstrom) account.
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