A Lesson In Customer Relations From A Baker
Many years ago, I had an ink pen that I adored.
It was a Montblanc titanium. I bought it in Copenhagen, and I liked it because, unlike most Montblanc pens- those black bulky ones you are so familiar with, this one was slim and metal and solid and heavy to the touch.
It had a gold nib and because it was so well made and so solid, I wrote with it all the time.
Then, one day, when I was walking in Saigon, or Ho Chi Mihn City, some kid on the back of a moped snatched it right out of my pocket in one seamless move and roared off with my prize posession.
I wanted to replace it, but no matter where I looked, I could not find it. Mountblanc had simply stopped making them.
Too bad.
Finally, I wrote to the Chairman and CEO of the Montblanc Company in Switzerland, asking if perhaps they had any left in some store room somewhere there in Switzerland that I could purhase.
I got back not just a letter from the Chairman, but also a lovely Montblanc box with, guess what, a new gleaming silver titanium pen.
The Chairman wrote to me and said that no, they no longer had the pens in stock, but he had had this one made for me out of replacement parts and I should accept it as a gift.
Well, that was more than 40 years ago, but I remember the story to this day, and of course, it made me a Montblanc customer for life.
You don’t run into that kind of customer service hardly at all. But every once in a while you do, and I did again this morning.
I used to love to order these amazing fresh baked pitas, thick and fluffy, from Fresh Direct, our NYC based food delivery service. They were great! But then, one day, Fresh Direct stopped carrying them. They were made by a small artisinal bakery called Brooklyn Mills.
I wrote to Fresh Direct to ask them to restock the Brooklyn Mills pitas, but to no avail, so I Googled Brooklyn Mills and found them — in Brooklyn, of course, and wrote to the company.
I got a lovely response from the proprietor of Brooklyn Mills, one Aristos Janos.
Janos makes his bread the old fashioned way, the way his grandmother did, in Greece. His method involves a custom-made slow rotation stone mill, a process that allows the highest nutrient content of the grain, maintaining the germ, bran, and endosperm — or so says a blurb I read about him. But I can only speak for the texture and the taste. Extraordinary.
At any rate, I wrote to Mr. Janos to ask if I could purchase the pitas I loved so much directly from him.
He said that the next time he was in Manhattan, he would drop some off for me at my building. I live in Midtown.
This morning, my concierge called to say that there was a package for me and they would bring it up.
It was a box and a bag, filled to the brim with Brooklyn Mills pitas. Just the way I love them. Large size and small.
Mr. Janos sent me a note. Enjoy! He said.
I asked if he had an Instgram or Twitter account where I could sing his praises. Who does stuff like this????
He said he was old fashioned and did not do social media.
So I am writing this instead.
And here is a link to his website.
The man knows how to make a customer for life — along with an amazing bread.
Enjoy.
