Why I love local businesses

I know I promised to update on the house and all that madness and I will - but first, a brief bit on why I like to support local businesses:

*this picture is taken from Muddy's website

The picture above is of a red velvet cupacke from Muddy's Bake Shop. Red velvet is one of Jake's favorites and is one of my top three. I happen to LOVE Muddy's and it is owned by someone that went to high school a few years ahead of two of my bestest friends. There was a rumor going around that Muddy's was opening a Midtown location, which made me happy. They posted on their blog that this wasn't true and I commented that I was bummed. Can you believe that Kat (the owner) emailed me and apologized? How is that for customer service? I was so impressed. She is so thankful for her success and always is doing things for the community - enriching the area around her.


That is simply one example of a local business owner doing their part for the community. I was recently very frustrated (as I posted in my photo weekend review) with Macy's customer service. I usually love Macy's - there is always a sale, I like their products, I even registered for my wedding there. However when I ordered my mattress from them, I found myself very disappointed. Dennis, the mattress guy at Macy's, was so helpful - he even took a little more off the sale price for us. Yet, when the mattress was delivered, the guys set it up, dropped it off, and peaced out. After they left, I was putting on the mattress cover and found that the mattress was wet (soaking wet - all the way from top to bottom) at the head end of the mattress and had brown and black stains on the side there. Now, I know I should have noticed this when they were setting it up but like I said they zipped in and out.


So, naturally after paying a large sum for a mattress that now sat wet and moldy in my new house I was upset. I called customer service and they were pretty nonchalant about the whole deal. They monotonely apologized with little feeling and said they could get us a new mattress - in two weeks. October 31st. That would have been two weeks we would have gone without a mattress. Not only that, but they wouldn't pick up the old one until they dropped off the new one. At that point, I asked if there was any way they could get it there sooner, to which she simply said no. I asked for the delivery fee to be refunded and she agreed (note: you'd think they would have volunteered that on their own but no...)


I called Jake, we talked it over, and decided simply to return it for a full refund. Jake called back and they told him they'd refund the money but it would be a week before they could come pick up the mattress. Unacceptable. Finally, after being put on hold multiple times totalling a little under an hour, they agreed that they could probably call the guys on their delivery route to come get it at the end of the day.


This is frustrating to me because it shows the complete lack of customer service in many national corporations. I was talking to my mom about this - how businesses blame the economy when they go down but sometimes it simply is a lack of customer service - people have forgotten that in a true business model, they are there to serve the customer. The customer has the money. I'm not advocating being a priss or pain as a customer but you are entitled to good service. And Macy's certainly did not come through.


To bring this back around to the local business topic, Jake and I ended up getting a mattress at a local business for 200$ less and they delivered it the same day. We're very pleased with our mattress and have slept well for multiple nights. Support local businesses!