Thepuritea and Customer Service: How to do it right

Everyone at some point or another has been a customer somewhere. We all buy things, go out to eat, go to the movies, etcetera. Good customer service is pretty much expected. But when we get GREAT customer service, when a company goes above and beyond what is expected, we remember. Companies like these deserve recognition and so I am writing this post today.

Now, despite what my focus in this blog has been so far, this is not a polish company I'm talking about. This is a tea company. Tea has been my greatest love (only behind books) for much longer than polish has been. I have at least two 12oz pots of tea every day depending on which tea I choose to use from my stash. There are a number of tea varieties but they are all categorized into six groups depending on the level of leaf oxidation and processing style: white, yellow, green, oolong, black, and pu'erh (which, along with oolong, can range anywhere between green and black) (for more information see the Wikipedia articles on tea and tea processing).

After a few years of trying out teas I have found that my favorite kind are black teas and jasmine scented teas. Until I found this company that I am writing about the only jasmine teas I'd been able to find were all green or white teas but I was totally stoked when I discovered that this company, Thepuritea, sold a BLACK tea that was JASMINE SCENTED!  I didn't have a lot of money at the time so I ordered four sample sizes of the Jasmine Golden Yunnan . . . and absolutely fell in love with it! The next time I had enough money I went to order a full sized package and they were out of stock. No worries, I'd just wait until it was back in stock. Eventually even the sample size was out of stock. And then, just before Thanksgiving they announced on their Facebook page that all out of stock teas were back in stock! I bet you can guess what I did that weekend: I went and ordered the 4oz package of Jasmine Golden Yunnan!

Hardly four days later I got my order in the mail. I LOVE fast shipping <3 But when I opened it what I found inside was the REGULAR Golden Yunnan. I wasn't too upset, it's an easy mistake to make, so I emailed them that night asking how I might be able to send the regular Yunnan tea back to exchange it for the Jasmine. Not even two hours later I was emailed back and told that the regular Golden Yunnan was mine to keep (a full 4oz of tea leaves!) and the Jasmine one would be sent out the next day with a couple extra goodies! Wow! Needless to say my jaw nearly hit the floor. The regular Golden Yunnan tea is $4 more for the same size, I was getting 8oz of tea leaves for only $10.80 after sales and coupon code!

When my tea mail arrived (just as swiftly as the first had) I broke out the last precious serving I had been saving of the Jasmine Golden Yunnan to celebrate. And then I took pictures! Come on, what would a blog post be without pictures?

The two large bags are, of course, the Jasmine and regular Golden Yunnan teas. The two boxes each hold one blooming tea (the extras sent with my replacement order) and the little package in front is a sample of Ceylon (another black tea) that came in the first box. To give you an idea of scale, you could fit three bottles of China Glaze polish in one of those silver boxes. That is a LOT of tea!

Golden Yunnan tea leaves

Jasmine Golden Yunnan tea leaves

Jasmine Golden Yunnan tea and my blue tetsubin tea pot

I've already decided for my next order I'll be getting the Red Dragon Pearl and possibly the Dan Cong oolong. I love this company, I love their teas and I LOVE their customer service!