Well, not really, but I made out nicely. Some of the details will be scarce since it involves Christmas gifts for my wife, but the gist will be clear.<\/p>\n
I went online the other day to order some things my wife had expressed an interest in. After I added them to the shopping cart, I poked around the site a little to see if I could find any other goodies to put under the tree. She really likes Lands End clothing so it was worth a shot.<\/p>\n
Something caught my eye and, while she may have ended up returning it, I figured it was worth a shot because of the good price so I added it to my cart. Then I decided to check out.<\/p>\n
While going through that process, I noticed the total of my order \u2013 $49.98. Lands End has a habit of kicking in discounts and special deals at the $50 level. This time it involved free shipping. I had a moment of pause.<\/p>\n
The regular shipping would get the items to me by Christmas. That cost $8. If I wanted to realistically add something to my cart to get over $50, I would probably spend at least $8 so chasing the free shipping made absolutely no sense. I just had to suck it up and place the order.<\/p>\n
As I looked at the e-mail confirmation, I noticed an e-mail address for any feedback on the transaction. So I sent them a quick note telling them I am a loyal customer and wondered if I could get the free shipping since I came so close to the $50 target.<\/p>\n
They got back to me within a few hours with a fairly canned response (note to retailers who do this sort of thing \u2013 make sure the font style and size of the message that the customer service people paste into the e-mail matches the rest of what they type) that pretty much shot down my idea of cutting me a break. But I figured it was worth one more shot.<\/p>\n
I sent a very simple message: \u201cSo no love for being two cents off?\u201d<\/p>\n
Just a little over two hours yet, I got the message I wanted to see. They had decided to manually override the shipping charge because I came so close to $50. I really appreciated it since this kind of service really breeds customer loyalty.<\/p>\n
But that isn\u2019t really how I pulled one over on them. I mentioned that the item I went out on a limb to purchase came at a good price, right? In fact, the color I wanted was no longer available in the size I needed because it was on sale. I liked the color I picked, but knew that this was an item either in demand or at the end of its life.<\/p>\n
The shipping notice came just a little while ago. That item was no longer available, and that part of my order had been cancelled. But I still got the free shipping even though my order was less than half of $50.<\/p>\n
I never would have been close to the $50 threshold without the cancelled item so I ended up catching a huge break. Remember, it never hurts to nicely ask these companies for some special service. Sometimes, it works out more in your favor than you could ever imagine.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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