TUMI Watertower Place Saved My Vacation…read more
Fact: We are in the dog days of retail shopping, and on a daily basis I see mostly all discouraging experiences and confidence whenever I must stray from my computer and take on shopping in the real world (a hangover from what we have been through for the past 2+ years of Covid 19, and adjusting all of our interactions to work around it).
Fast-Forward to last Thursday evening in Chicago Watertower Place, my faith in humanity and retail has been rejuvenated through a fantastic experience I had with Christine D., and Rebecca H., who went so far beyond the call of duty, I will never forget it. If you read no further, the takeaway is this: that if you buy luggage from Tumi Watertower Place, you are in the best of hands, the hands of Christine and Rebecca. Here is my story:
On Thursday early evening, I arrived to Chicago, and checked into the Palmer House hotel downtown. I got up to my room, went out for a quick dinner, and arrived at my room ready to unpack luggage at 6pm. TSA had used their key on my suitcase, and in doing so had failed to reset the lock to its original position, meaning EVERYTHING I needed for this trip, which was starting in 2 hours with friends, was LOCKED INSIDE my aluminum indestructible TUMI suitcase.
In a panic, I called the original Tumi store where I purchased the suitcase and they gave me the name of 2 TUMI stores in Downtown Chicago, 1 of them was already closed at 6pm, so that left the TUMI Watertower Place store, and it was closing in about 45 minutes at this point (7pm). I will be the first to admit that I was frantic sounding on this phone call, because in fact I was frantic. This was one of those trips that was business, as well as fun, and I had over-planned with many revolving get togethers and experiences that ran back to back. Little did I realize that all of it hinged on one thing, MY SUITCASE OPENING. Answering the phone was Christine, who was the calming, professional voice I needed to hear at that exact moment in my life. She ran me through a couple of exercises with the lock to make sure it was not something obvious that I was missing. She gave me a couple of options of things I could try, but I just did not have the confidence I could pull it off, especially when I had to meet with people in 2 hours or less.
At this moment, this is where we have all been recently: The experience usually ends right here. The store is closing at 7, this is a giant task that may or may not have been beyond their help, 99.9% of the time in this experience, this is where they jump off the phone and lock up for the night. Not this time. Christine and Rebecca invited me to come in, WHEN THEY WERE CLOSING. They told me if I could make it over before the mall closed up, they would be waiting to help me.
That turned out not to be the easiest task either, Lollapalooza (a 4 day gigantic concert that draws people from around the world) was happening in the area of my hotel, and Uber had a blackout on downtown, so I could not easily get me and my XL suitcase over to Watertower Place. I ran with that suitcase for 4 blocks before giving up on Uber, creating a Lyft account, and getting a Lyft driver to find me. My Lyft driver rolled up to Watertower Place at 6:59, and I called up to Christine and Rebecca to let them know I was now running through the mall and would be there by 7pm. Again: 99.9% of the time, where I am from, they close and lock the door and wish you luck.
I arrived to the TUMI store up on the 3rd floor exactly at closing. I fully expected a look of annoyance on the face of Christine and Rebecca, here was a technical issue with a lock they might not be able to crack, and zero sales opportunity walking through the door, I myself would have been annoyed. Nothing could have been further from the truth, I was greeted very warmly with smiles, and they got straight to work on my lock issue. After just 11 minutes of going through many different lock sequences, they cracked the lock! I was back in my room, changing for my nights events with a very relieved wife by 7:30pm. It would have been hours, hundreds of dollars in Uber/Lyft, and many canceled events if I had to get an Uber out to the airport to have TSA take a look at this lock. The entire trajectory of this trip was positively saved because of the extra efforts of Christine and Rebecca, I am sincerely grateful.
So the next time you are buying luggage, thinking it is just luggage.... Imagine yourself in my shoes on this trip. Go with the company that has the high quality luggage, and has the sense to hire the best, people like Christine and Rebecca.
Best Regards,
-Chris
