Customer Service

This is a tale of 2 complaints and the very different approaches to customer service.

I finished my socks with the Ty-Dy socks from Knit One Crochet Too.  Remember, the first sock was made on the plane trip from hell on Southwest, more on that later.  When I got to the toe of the first sock, there was a knot, the bane of knitters.  I finished up, as the color matched.  I had wanted to repeat the color transitions as closely as possible, so rewound the skein to find where I would be able to start again. But, the second half of the yarn was not the same as the first. It was more of a gradual color change. This yarn was a Christmas gift, so I could not return it to the store. I knit up the second sock, and was very unhappy with how they looked together. I would have been happy with either of the two, but not together.

I emailed customer service at Knit One Crochet Too, and got a very poor response:

This particular yarn is designed to have random color changes which is what you experienced. It may have been a little exaggerated by the tie on if it made the same color show up for a longer length, I agree.

No offer of a different skein to try, no apologies for quality control. No explanation of which of the 2 yarns they were really trying to make. I will not be purchasing this yarn in the future. Buyer beware.

The pattern was Lindsay by Cookie A, and I really loved it.  It has a nice stretch, is easy to memorize, and works well with a variegated yarn (patterns for that are often hard to find).  The structure of the pattern really reminded me a lot of the Monkey socks by the same CookieA.  There are a couple of corrections to the pattern that I posted on Ravelry, and will repeat here:

• After the rib, you do the set-up row, then start with Row 2 of the chart. Continue along.
• The other area for clarification is on the garter-stitch heel. When you get to the last row of turning the heel it should read that you: end with a RS row-34 sts between ends, 3 stitches at the end of the needle (1 double wrapped, 1 single wrapped and one unwrapped stitch) (the beginning of previous row); and 2 sts at the tip of the needle (end of previous row) (1 single wrapped, and one unwrapped). This is because when you start the heel, you leave one unwrapped stitch at each end.

After I got back from my awful Southwest experience last week, I sent them an email also detailing the flight from Hell sandwiched between two overly large men.  I asked only for the cost of the upcharge when I changed flights.  Here is their email, quite a different response.  Guess which of these two companies will be getting my future business.

Dear Frances,We regret that you experienced an uncomfortable flight when you traveled with us since another Customer’s girth encroached upon your space onboard the aircraft. As you may know, we have a policy in place that requires any Customer who cannot be safely, comfortably, and completely accommodated in one seat with both armrests in the down position to purchase the number of seats occupied. We require and expect our Ground Operations personnel and Flight Attendants to ensure that everyone onboard our flights has adequate seating space.

Admittedly and humbly, our Employees should have recognized the seating needs of this Customer of size before boarding began. Additionally, had our Flight Attendants noticed the seating problem prior to takeoff, they should have contacted station personnel to make arrangements to allow this Customer of size to occupy two seats. If the flight is completely full, then our Employees should either solicit for a volunteer to take a later flight with compensation or offer to reaccommodate the Customer of size so they can occupy the necessary seat(s). We regret that this situation was not addressed and handled appropriately before takeoff.

As a gesture of goodwill for your inconvenience, we have refunded your one way ticket in the amount of $179.20 to the original form of payment used. Please allow one to two billing cycles for the credit to post. I am hopeful that you will accept this gesture in the spirit intended.

Sincerely,

A****, Southwest Airlines