Customer Bites Nike : When Values Collide ...

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Nike now let you personalize your shoes by submitting a word or phrase which they will stitch onto the shoes, under the 'woosh'. So Jonah Peretti filled out the form and sent them $50 to stitch "sweatshop" onto his shoes. Here's the email dialogue that followed...

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From: "Personalize, NIKE iD" nikeid_personalize@nike.com To: 'Jonah H. Peretti' Your NIKE iD order was cancelled for one or more of the following reasons: 1) Your Personal iD contains another party's trademark or other intellectual property 2) Your Personal iD contains the name of an athlete or team we do not have the legal right to use 3) Your Personal iD was left blank. Did you not want any personalization? 4) Your Personal iD contains profanity or inappropriate slang, and besides, your mother would slap us.

If you wish to reorder your NIKE iD product with a new personalization please visit us again at nike.com Thank you, NIKE iD

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From: "Jonah H. Peretti" Greetings, My order was canceled but my personal NIKE iD does not violate any of the criteria outlined in your message. The Personal iD on my custom ZOOM XC USA running shoes was the word "sweatshop." Sweatshop is not:

1) another's party's trademark, 2) the name of an athlete, 3) blank, or 4) profanity.

I choose the iD because I wanted to remember the toil and labor of the children that made my shoes. Could you please ship them to me immediately. Thanks and Happy New Year, Jonah Peretti

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From: "Personalize, NIKE iD" nikeid_personalize@nike.com To: "'Jonah H. Peretti'" Dear NIKE iD Customer, Your NIKE iD order was cancelled because the iD you have chosen contains,as stated in the previous e-mail corespondence, "inappropriate slang". If you wish to reorder your NIKE iD product with a new personalization please visit us again at nike.com

Thank you, NIKE iD

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From: "Jonah H. Peretti" Dear NIKE iD, Thank you for your quick response to my inquiry about my custom ZOOM XCUSA running shoes. Although I commend you for your prompt customer service, I disagree with the claim that my personal iD was inappropriate slang. After consulting Webster's Dictionary, I discovered that "sweatshop" is in fact part of standard English, and not slang. The word means: "a shop or factory in which workers are employed for long hours at low wages and under unhealthy conditions" and its origin dates from 1892. So my personal iD does meet the criteria detailed in your first email.

Your web site advertises that the NIKE iD program is "about freedom to choose and freedom to express who you are." I share Nike's love of freedom and personal expression. The site also says that "If you want it done right...build it yourself." I was thrilled to be able to build my own shoes, and my personal iD was offered as a small token of appreciation for the sweatshop workers poised to help me realize my vision. I hope that you will value my freedom of expression and reconsider your decision to reject my order.

Thank you, Jonah Peretti

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From: "Personalize, NIKE iD" nikeid_personalize@nike.com To: "'Jonah H. Peretti'" Dear NIKE iD Customer, Regarding the rules for personalization it also states on the NIKE iD web site that "Nike reserves the right to cancel any personal iD up to 24 hours after it has been submitted". In addition, it further explains: "While we honor most personal iDs, we cannot honor every one. Some may be (or contain) other's trademarks, or the names of certain professional sports teams, athletes or celebrities that Nike does not have the right to use.

Others may contain material that we consider inappropriate or simply do not want to place on our products. Unfortunately, at times this obliges us to decline personal iDs that may otherwise seem unobjectionable. In any event, we will let you know if we decline your personal iD, and we will offer you the chance to submit another." With these rules in mind, we cannot process your order as submitted. If you wish to reorder your NIKE iD product with a new personalization please visit us again at nike.com

Thank you, NIKE iD

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"Jonah H. Peretti" Dear NIKE iD, Thank you for the time and energy you have spent on my request. I have decided to order the shoes with a different iD, but I would like to make one small request. Could you please send me a snapshot of the ten-year-old Vietnamese girl who makes my shoes?

Thanks, Jonah Peretti

No response...

This email exchange will go round the world much farther and faster than any of the adverts Nike paid Michael Jordan more than the entire wage packet of all its sweatshop workers in the world to do. I normally avoid making a plea to pass on this kind of email, but this time I say: JUST DO IT

SOURCE: Emailed to us by Associate Member Juliet Miller, Customer Champions

And the point is...If there is an inconsistency between your brand promise - the values you claim to stand for - and the way you do business, you will be found out. The global, networked economy doesn't just connect you with your suppliers. It connects your customers with each other...(Ping! A Lightbulb Moment?)... Your only defence against this kind of customer power is Integrity.

-- Ben (ben@timedesk.nl), March 26, 2001

Answers

Client demands Okay I have had clients ask to have me interrupted during a bath room break but recently two have just exceeded the limit of toleration. When my daughter was in surgery a client had me paged at the hospital to ask questions about her Paris trip which was in three months now Yesterday one of my co workers was in the dentist chair and the client called us and asked us to patch him through to the dentist chair!!!!!!!!! Zo werkt communicatie bij Amerikaanse reisburo's

-- Ben (ben@timedesk.nl), March 26, 2001.

Weer een bijdrage van mijn Amerikaanse reisburo collega's over klanten srvice... When I was in the hospital about 6 years ago..several nurses, orderlies,etc wanted to become my clients. "What's the best cruise ? How much to San Diego When will spring break packages be out ?" You get the idea. I was very sick at the time. My dad was a lawyer. When he was in the hospital after a bad car accident in the 70s, same type of thing happened. People kept coming by his hospital bed asking for legal advice. He finally sent them down the hall to a lawyer who was recupperating from a heart attack !

-- Ben (ben@timedesk.nl), March 28, 2001.

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