Lands' End's Web Site
|
This is a company I really admire. For the last several years I have bought almost all my clothes from them. Socks and underwear - no, they only offer boxers or white briefs; I like those colored bikini briefs... that's a story for another day. But every dress shirt, jeans pants, and belt has come from Lands' End. Why?
First, the sizes remain the same. I can buy an item today and I know it will be the exact same size as the one I bought a year ago.
Second, the products are of high quality. Nice tailoring and good cloth.
Third, the 100% satisfaction guarantee. They take anything back, any time, no question. And they'll send my pre-paid UPS shipping labels. That's great.
Fourth, the catalog is easy to read and has good pictures.
Finally, the customer service people who take the orders are incredibly helpful, nice, easy to deal with. I love 'em.
Besides, I'd rather spend my shopping time looking for the odd shirt, pant, or coat. For the mundane, everyday things I just as soon order them over the phone at midnight. Their web site is another matter.
I've tried to be a good web citizen and use the LE web site, but it just isn't that easy. It sometimes takes a lot of clicks to find what I want. In the case detailed below I think they have tried too hard to mimic the structure of the print catalog in the on-line story.
|
They got back to me in less than 30 minutes. And, they included a contact phone number for the customer service rep who handled the email. This company is just top knotch.
|
|
With the power of web site searching and hyper linking I think I should be able to navigate to a type of shirt and find all the modifications I need. Maybe in the printed catalog one needs to separate the Talls from the Normals in order to keep the reader from confusion, but on-line I should click "shirt, tall, color" and then give a credit card.
As to why the web site's "call me" feature doesn't use the same bank of phone operators as the one's who answer dial-in phone calls, who knows. Let's hope they don't out source to India!
Jim Schrempp is a sometimes freelance writer (only Vanity Press will publish his work) living in Saratoga, California. His writings have appeared on numerous pages on his own web site. The opinions expressed in this piece are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent those of anyone else (although Jim wishes more people shared his opinions)