One Little Question

I know I've talked about EXTREME customer service before, but I just have to share what happened to me today. I was at the Dalma Mall looking for the new Ace Hardware, which I found isn't open yet. Anyways, I was craving coffee...shocker, I know. As luck would have it we were out of coffee beans at home, so I figured I could kill two birds with one stone. I could get my afternoon coffee fix and I could buy a bag of beans for the house.

So, I stopped in at Caribou Coffee on my way out of the mall. Yes, I'm cheating on Starbucks, but they don't have a Starbucks at Dalma. Don't tell my son, he's a SBUX shareholder. As I was walking in, a display with bags of some special coffee caught my eye. I saw the words pumpkin pie spice, and my heart skipped a beat. Pumpkin flavored coffee of any kind is my favorite, but it doesn't exist here in Abu Dhabi...until now.

Of course, I grabbed a bag and proceeded to the counter to order my frozen Caramel Highrise. I asked the clerk ringing me up a simple question, "How long will you be selling this flavor?". It was a reasonable question, because most special flavor items here are only sold for a month. After she consulted with the guy making my drink, I got the answer of one month. I simply stated that I was just asking, because if I liked it I wanted to come back and stock up on more before they got rid of it. So, then the clerk pulls out a huge bag from behind the counter to show me a larger size I could buy if I ended up liking it.

Well, I guess my talking to the clerks caught the eye of the manager that was in the middle of a crew meeting in the corner of the store, so he walked over to ask me if he could help me. I stated very simply that I just wanted to know how long they would be selling the new flavor, because up until now I haven't been able to find it in the UAE. He gave me the same one month answer, and points out just like the clerk did that I could buy a huge bag like they keep behind the counter for store use.

Then, the owner of the store came out of the corner meeting to see if  he could help me. Again, I had to explain that I was just asking about how long they would be selling the bags of pumpkin pie spice coffee, and how the flavor is a favorite of mine. He, like the others, showed me that I could buy the special huge bag behind the counter. I told him just like I did the others, that I was going to try the regular sized bag that I had already paid for and if I liked it, I would come back and stock up.

So here's the funny part, the owner turns to the manager and the clerk making my Caramel Highrise and demands that they brew me a cup of the pumpkin coffee right then and give it to me to try for free. He begs me to go sit on a couch and "relax" while he has his employees prepare a coffee tasting for me. Really? If I hadn't already ordered a drink, then maybe I would have taken him up on his generous offer. I figured that much afternoon caffeine would have me up all night, so I thanked him and politely declined. Then he assured me he would reserve 2 of the large bags just for me, and he instructed his staff not to sell them to anyone else.

Wow, all that over one simple question.