Seth Wening/The Associated Press
Chris DeRose at Forbes wrote a personal essay about how his wife, Elizabeth, was frustrated with J. Crew because she felt the brand no longer offered styles she wanted to buy.
“I am so disheartened and disappointed that you are leaving your core values and styling and abandoning your loyal customers,” she wrote in a note to a generic company email address.
Soon, Elizabeth got a phone call from CEO
Drexler is the famed former CEO of Gap and has been called the "Merchant Prince" because of his impact on the
Drexler also got the heads of styling and marketing on the phone to speak with DeRose's wife. He apologized to her and said that J. Crew's team was working on getting back to its more classic styles.
The phone call was impressive to DeRose.
"Drexler’s passionate pursuit of customer feedback is an inspiration to any of us who have written an irritated letter after a bad service experience or disappointing product purchase," he wrote. "Hopefully, Drexler will also serve as a role model for senior executives stuck in their headquarter offices to get out and interact with customers on the front line."