Trader Joe's Writes Back!

Even though I've only sent four letters so far, and three were to huge companies, I was starting to get disappointed that I hadn't even received a form letter in response. Well today I got a letter back from Trader Joe's - which I figured I would. They're a small, customer service focused grocery store.

It's a typed letter on company letterhead and the envelope was hand addressed. The letter was short and friendly, thanking me for my letter and even joking about my request that they stop selling chocolate. Overall, not bad - basically what I was expecting.

However, the letter is signed "Customer Relations Representative" instead of by a person with a name. The kicker is that they asked that I don't post their response to my blog! Considering the prompt response and pleasant nature of their response I'm not really sure why the don't want me to post the response.

I must admit that when I decided to include the part of the letter that mentioned the blog I figured the big companies would either not read it (and so I'd be okay with posting their form letter responses) or they would read it an insist that I don't post the response. I figured a place like Trader Joe's would be cool with it.

I'm not sure if this is just an issue of someone not having the authority to allow something like this. Maybe they're concerned about the nature of the blog, or they don't understand blogs or even the internet. I include the URL to the blog in the letters so the companies can take a look at what I'm writing before they respond.

Unfortunately, I think my overall assessment of Trader Joe's customer service has been tainted by their request to keep the letter out of the blog. The letter is really quite nice - just what I expected. There is no reason to ask me to exclude it - but they did. Oh well, now the two people who read this blog entry will have a slightly less favorable impression of Trader Joe's than they would have had if I had been able to post the response.

I did link to a scan of the envelope - I figure that's public domain - so click on the blog title to see it.