Serviceatlast

I was scrolling on Facebook, and my sweet tooth was on High Alert, always a bad combination.  Up pops an ad from Anellabees, a company that features organic honey candy, treats, and gifts.

Two things:

If you’re thinking, oh, like Bit-O-Honey candy, lose that notion.  This is far more chewy and (sorry) tastier, and there’s a wider variety of candies. (The honey cocoa caramels?  You have been warned.)

If the notion of honey candy does nothing for you, go look at the site anyway, since it will restore your soul—it is just gorgeous.  They sell honey, seed mixes, the cutest beeswax candle ever made, and it’s all incredibly affordable, even with shipping.

It’s close to Christmas, so their honey candy goes on my Christmas list, and shows up in my stocking (I’ve said it before—if you marry in this life, marry well).  It’s as delicious as advertised, so it disappears pretty quickly, and I order more.

I hear from them by email—thanks for your order, here’s the tracking number, it should be there soon.  I forget about the notice, but when cleaning out my inbox, I come across it ten days after the delivery was allegedly made.  Nothing.

Porch bandits aren’t common in our neighborhood, and even DoorDashers give up on our picket fence and leave food on the sidewalks, so I’m pretty sure this stuff just never came. I reach out to Anellabees one morning and ask for an update.

That night, I get an answer.

“Sorry it took so long to respond.  We were in the kitchen all day.  We’ll look into this, and be in touch.”

The people in charge of the shipping also make the candy.  Huh.

Next day, it’s after lunch, and I get a call.  It’s Anellabees.  Following up on their email.

Read this next part twice:

“Sorry about this order.  The UPS picture shows our box with the red label, and I Googled your house, so I’m pretty sure your porch is the one in the picture.  What can we do here?”

If you are in any way involved with DoorDash, I hope you are taking notes right now.  They Googled my house to follow up on a delivery, and called.  In person.  Not an AI.

I offer to look around the house again.  It’s the least I can do to repay all their kindness, which has now restored my faith in mail order, and perhaps humanity.

“OK, but call us back and let us know.  If you don’t have it, we want to make sure our customers get their product.”

They’d send more.  For free.

I go to a closet where I’ve stored some orders with post-holiday sale items for next Christmas, and there’s their box, shiny red label almost glowing.  I open it up, and the order is right there, cute little candle and all—and three free sample honey caramels in the tiniest Ziploc bag I have seen in my life, along with a handwritten thank you note on the invoice.

 I call them back, and we chat like old friends.

This is the fourth story I’ve written about service, so I guess it’s a thing for me. This adventure reminds me that The Way It’s Supposed to Be is still real, still out there, and still wonderful.  I can’t think of a better way to start the new year.

So go to their website and order a little something, to support their way of doing business, and encourage yourself.

But not too much.  I don’t want them to go all DoorDash on me.

Clerk

All workers
At the store named Planet
Which word gets the emphasis
When you say
Can I help you?

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