When Complaining Makes a Difference

Elizabeth DeRose opened up J. Crew’s fall catalogue and didn’t like what she saw — everything seemed over-stylized — so she shot off an angry email to the company saying how disappointed she was that the brand seemed to be abandoning its core customers. Twenty-four hours later, she got a call from J. Crew CEO Mickey Drexler and the company’s president, Libby Wadle, as well as the heads of marketing and personal shopping (creative director Jenna Lyons would have also joined the call, but she was on vacation). After discussing how the clothing seemed to be straying too far from the “classics” Drexler emailed DeRose to say: “We are on it for sure. I hope you see a difference this fall.”

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