It Pays To Complain - Politely!

[BreezyCooking]

So last month on one of the "what's for dinner" threads I mentioned that I had purchased a double package of Aidell's "Buffalo-Style Turkey Meatballs" at CostCo, but unfortunately found them salty to the point of near inedibility.

Having always enjoyed Aidell's many different flavors of poultry sausages, I e-mailed the company - very politely - & not only told them about the meatball problem, but also how much we enjoyed their other products.

Lo & behold, not only did I receive a lovely e-mail response, but yesterday's mail contained a hand-written refund check for more than the cost of the meatballs, but also several coupons for free packages of any of their products.

How great is that?? Talk about terrific customer service!!!

 

[Andy M.]

That's really good customer service. I've had good experiences like that as well. It's nice to know there are good companies out there.

 

[BreezyCooking]

And it's not like we're "anti-salt" people. While we don't oversalt food, I always salt my Margherita glass - lol!!! But these poor meatballs literally made our eyes tear from the salt content. Perhaps we just got a bad batch.

Since it was a double package, I'm thinking of cooking the 2nd pack in some spicy tomato sauce for a bit & hope it leaches out some of the salt. And I'll definitely take comfort in the several free packages of wonderful Aidell sausages I'll be getting!!

What a nice company to deal with.

 

[Robt]

Breezy, you know those meat balls will make a lovely bait for crab or crayfish and those will not be too salty.

I like the response that Aidell's gave you. Too many businesses take the new view that customers should send money and otherwise don't bother us.

 

[BreezyCooking]

Lol - like meatballs would hold together that long - lol!!

Growing up on the north shore of Long Island, NY, we used chicken scraps & purchased squid as bait - long before squid was recognised as a gourmet food source - lol. These days, squid is now a PREMIUM food stuff - lol!!! Crab bait at $5.00/lb minimum?? I think not - lol!!!

I'm not a crayfish fan - mostly because I'm very leery of all fresh-water edibles around here.

 

[StirBlue]

Congrats for receiving such a positive response from the company.
As for the salty meatballs, you might want to make a batch of unseasoned white sauce (milk & cornstarch) and crumble the meatballs into it. Serve it over pasta and serve with a colorful side of corn confetti (kernel corn, red & green peppers) or peas & carrots.
Tomato products tend to be seasoned with a lot of salt. A friend had some small meatballs that she used in her ramen noodles.
You could also use them in onion soup with a side of crusty bread and a cheese platter (yo....pepper jack...LOL)

 

[redkitty]

That is fabulous customer service! Nice work!

 

[Constance]

Congratulations, Breezy. I have had good luck with that method, too.

But if they give me to much BS, Constance takes over and gets business done. I have gotten people fired.

 

[Caine]

I'd STILL take the meatballs back to Costco and request a refund.

 

[Katie H]

I had an interesting experience last year with the folks at Rival. I bought a Crockette crockpot at a thrift store. The lid was missing and I was pretty certain I could get one on the Internet at the Rival site. Yes. That was possible.

I ordered the lid. I was told it should arrive in about 10 business days. Okay, that was reasonable and I was in no hurry to use the appliance. More than 10 days passed, so I called their 800 number to get the status of my order. They'd given me an order number intitally.

The person I spoke to said I was misinformed. I shouldn't have been told 10 days. Alright, how many then? Three weeks. Fine. I can wait the additional few days by this time.

Three weeks pass. I call again. Get someone else. They'd check. Yep. The lid had been shipped. I should receive it any day.

Another (almost) week goes by and I call again. Oh, sorry it was sent to the wrong state. Nevada. I live in Kentucky. The lid was coming from Chicago. Someone needed a lesson in geography.

After almost 6 weeks the lid arrives. Wrong color. I don't care at this point.

However, by this time, I was a bit steamed so I called their customer service and complained to someone "up" in the organization. He apologized all over the place and said he'd refund my money if I wanted him to OR now, get this, I could go online to the Holmes/Rival site and choose anything I wanted. Let him know and he'd have it shipped to me asap.

He made this offer on a Friday. I told him I'd have to think about it and would call him back on Monday. After all, how many crockpots can anyone use? Well, I have to say I'm a bit of a crockpot junkie. I have 5 in various sizes, so I didn't need another one. I was unfamiliar with the other products the Holmes/Rival folks made. I used the weekend to do my homework.

I called him bright and early Monday morning and said we'd decided on one of their upper-end deep fryers, thank you very much. He said it would be shipped that day.

Guess what? After multiple follow-up calls and five weeks later, the deep fryer arrived. I think Rival needs to work on their shipping procedures. I like the deep fryer, but I felt like I was pushing a rope through the whole process of getting the lid for my Crockette and my "gift."