I had occasion to visit Michigan this past week. One of the places I like to visit while there is Tim Hortons. There are no locations in Texas and I find them to be an excellent alternative to Starbucks.
I wanted to find a Tim Hortons in Ohio to stop in while driving back to Texas from Michigan. As I went through their web site, I had some questions which I submitted on their contact us form.
I was a little taken aback that I was required to provide a phone number. I normally will abandon a contact form which requires a phone number because I prefer to be contacted via email and I don’t want to take the chance of being contacted ad nauseum by sales people. In this case, though, I went ahead and included my number because I had one question in particular I wanted an answer to (can we get a Tim Hortons in Texas?).
I was quite surprised this morning to find a message on my phone from Dawn, who called from Tim Hortons to answer the questions and comments I sent via the contact us form. Her message was clear, concise, to-the-point and very friendly. I did mention in my email comments that I didn’t think it necessary to require a phone number. Her answer to this comment was very telling about the company in general. She said something to the effect of, “We could just send an email, but it’s not quite as nice as a phone call.”
Keep in mind, I’d rather communicate almost any other way than on the phone so this response took me aback. But, as I thought about it through the morning, I realized this is really a good thing. That a company will take the time to call someone who leaves a comment from their form is pretty extraordinary.
Hats off to Tim Hortons.
