A good response to a customer complaint

Mountain Spring Tide

Like most companies, Proctor and Gamble, the manufacturers of Tide, are always looking for ways to expand their existing brands and increase their market share.

In the laundry detergent business this means adding additional fragrances and combinations. (Original scent, Spring scent, Fresh scent, with fabric softener, formulated for cold water etc.)

But every time you make a change to a product that people have grown to love and trust, or at the very least use and trust, you run the risk that the change will make some of your existing customers unhappy.

So, when I saw Mountain Spring Tide on sale, I picked up a bottle. I thought that the fragrance would be fresh.

Well, I was wrong. It was overpowering, and every time I used it to wash a load of laundry it took two extra rinses to bring the smell down to a tolerable level.

So I complained to Tide.

I recently bought a bottle of Mountain Sprint Tide. This stuff stinks and even with two additional rinses the overpowering smell is stuck in my clothes.

I have been in the mountains in spring and they smell nothing like this.

In the past I have been happy with Tide, but why do you engage in these pointless brand extensions? If I want my clothes to smell like the mountain in spring, I'll take them for a holiday. This sort of product does nothing for P&G's reputation.

And I got a response from Tide.

Response from Tide - July 20, 2012

So, given the responses I could have received; nothing at all, or tough luck, this is actually a pleasant surprise.

Proctor and Gamble didn't get to be the huge packaged goods firm it is by ignoring its customers. Well done.