I'm Not a Superstar...DKNY Just Treated Me Like One

Here’s something you should know about me as I begin this story: I’m nobody.

Now, I don’t mean that in an self-deprecating, aww shucks, pity me sort of way.  I actually think I’m a good guy with a good job and great friends and family.  However, I am not a movie star. Or a professional athlete. Or a Kardashian. I’m not even a CEO/Entrepreneur/Social Media all-star with an audience of 100k+ Twitter followers who gets dinner delivered to him at an airport by a PR savvy steakhouse. If a company gives me great customer service, well, it’s not because they expect to get massive amounts of national exposure from me. Nope, it just means they’re good at customer service. Or, in the case of DKNY, they’re amazing at customer service.

Those that know me know that I have a tendency to spend a lot of time on Twitter. In a private moment, my wife might tell you that I’ve got an addiction (and she might be right). Occasionally, I may even share a little more about mundane tasks than anyone outside of my own brain would ever care to know. Say for example that I’m ironing one of my favorite new shirts and find a huge tear in the cuff:

Honestly, I’m not sure why I added “@dkny” to the end of it. True, the shirt in question is a DKNY shirt, but I really wasn’t intending to tweet a complaint or semi-publicly call out the company. I didn’t even know if that was a real Twitter handle. I was simply bummed that I couldn’t start the week wearing my new favorite shirt and felt like tweeting about it. I certainly never expected to hear from anyone at DKNY. However, less than 10 minutes later:

Take note of the time on that tweet. It was 9:17 p.m. on a Sunday night and someone was taking the time to respond to my concerns. This was clearly not a 9-5 intern tasked with spitting out corporate talking points while sending responses to social media mentions from the night before. So, being someone that always scored highly in “Listens and follows directions” in grade school, I DM’d my info, and received another response.

The response wasn’t “Send proof of purchase to xxxxx” or “Unfortunately, we can’t confirm that this was caused by a defect in craftsmanship”. I wasn’t even asked to confirm that it was a DKNY shirt (it is, I promise). I was simply asked where I purchased it and what size shirt I wear and told that they would be in touch.

This was actually the point at which I thought this story would end. You see, I purchased the shirt at the outlet mall and fully expected to get a response that items purchased at the DKNY Factory Store were subject to defects, etc. Instead, a couple days later, I received the following in my inbox:

“Let me know which you prefer and we will take care of it right away”. I was blown away. No hassle, no questions, no condescension towards an outlet shopper. Just “let me know…and we will take care of it”. I opted for the “grab bag” option, and a couple days later I arrived home to a package on my doorstep. They didn’t just throw a shirt in a FedEx box though:

They had wrapped up the shirt and so it arrived looking as though I had just brought it home from the store. I wasn’t surprised this time though, but I wasn’t any less impressed. Clearly, the good folks at DKNY understand customer service…and they do it amazingly well. They don’t sit in a room and ask what the ROI of social media is, no, they spend that time taking care of their “nobody” customers and making them feel like superstars.

Congrats DKNY, you’ve exceeded all expectations (and, inadvertently, created the “DKNY-standard” which I’ve begun measuring myself against in my professional life when dealing with customer service issues). I wish I could offer you oodles and oodles of national exposure for your brand in return. Instead, I offer you this humble blog post and the promise of many future purchases. Now, if only you could bring back DKNY Be Delicious for Men…then I’d really be impressed.

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