FridgeFilters.com Blog

FridgeFilters Featured Customer: Great Expectations

Jay lives in Commerce, MI, a small town outside of Detroit where he likes to do a little woodworking on the side, making cabinets and other casings. Back in 2005, he bought a new refrigerator and when it was time to order his water filters he went online to search for the right part. He placed his first order with FridgeFilters.com, because "your site was the easiest to find the right model". Now, six years later he still buys his water filters from FridgeFilters.

I asked Jay what helped us keep his business all these years. "It's about the service you provide," he explains, "I always get the right filter. That's what you want from an internet transaction, especially once you have done it for 6 years." Jay tells me he has even stopped using the filter change reminder sticker that comes with the new filters. "I don't even get the sticker out of the box, because I know I will get an email reminder [from FridgeFilters] about a month before I need to change my filter."

"A lot of companies miss the boat with commodity products," Jay says, "I have a table saw with a blade that has to be replaced. I would love to get a reminder from them when it is time to change it." There are a lot of e-stores competing for your business, but not all of them provide the same level of service. "After at least 6 years, fridgefilters.com continues to exceed my expectations and out do everyone else on the web in terms of doing ecommerce right."

Many thanks to Jay M. or Commerce, MI, for taking the time to share his story with me.

Like Clockwork

April is a very busy woman. She works for Dwayne Johnson & Associates, S.C. an accounting firm in Waukesha, WI. In addition to the work she does in reception and billing, she also handles all of the online orders for the company. I asked April what she looks for when she shops online and she explained that there are two major factors on her list.

The first thing is to order from someone you can trust to do things right the first time. Because Dwayne Johnson is a company that is built around trust and integrity, two very important values when you manage financial details for your clients, they expect the same from other businesses. April tells me she has ordered refrigerator filters from FridgeFilters for the last 5 years and has never once "had to use customer service ever" for an issue.

The second thing she looks for is prompt service. Ordering a water filter is "something you need to do and get it out of the way" April explains, because "you want to put the energy into your clients, not ordering a water filter." In a fast-paced business environment time is a valuable commodity and needs to be invested wisely. Having an email reminder when it's time to order new filters and a quick click re-order option saves her time. "The efficiency of what you offer is very important to me," April says, "I found the right place online to buy filters".

A very special thank you to April B. of Dwayne Johnson & Associates for taking the time to speak with me today!

You've Got Mail

A resident of Thornton, Colorado, Chris works for Oracle America selling hardware and software. His work schedule allows him to work from home a couple days a week, but Chris tells me he very rarely drinks water directly from the tap. "The water is so bad coming from the city," he explains, "it's very hard water with lots of minerals in it". Because of the poor water quality he relies on the filtered water dispenser on the fridge to get drinking water. He knows to replace his filter when the indicator light changes to red, but this time when the red light came on he had a decision to make.

Chris knew he needed to order some replacement filters for his refrigerator, but didn't know how much longer his current fridge would hold up. He had ordered from fridgefilters.com before back in 2005 and wanted to order another case of 6 filters to get the bulk pricing and free shipping, but what if his fridge stopped working? So he sent an email to customer service and was "astounded that I got an email response in less than 5 minutes, literally. Two minutes later I had a response from a customer service manager" to explain fridgefilters.com returns and exchanges policy. Chris tells me he was amazed not only at how fast the response was, but also at how thorough the information was that he was provided, "it was almost over-explained" and the quick response "answered my question to a tee." He was able to confidently place his order for 6 new water filters, knowing he could always return any filters he didn't need if his current system stopped working.

When I asked him what brought him to our store he replies, "The website was great. I loved the side-by-side filter comparison chart that showed the best filter and the next step down." When he first bought the fridge it came with the lower grade model from the manufacturer. After reading the filter comparison on the fridgefilters website he chose to go with the upgraded filter because it removed quite a few more contaminants. Now with his current refrigerator he only has to replace the filters about once a year. "You are one of the best companies out there selling online," Chris jokes with me, "the only downside is only dealing with you once every 5 years". I think that's a problem we can all live with for now.

A huge thank you to Chris S. of Thornton, Colorado for taking the time from his busy day to speak with me.

Becky Powell on Lightsaber Duels and Raising Healthy Kids

She may never get to be Darth Vader when dueling lightsabers with her son, but a quick check of her twitter profile reveals that @OpheliaRising is still "pretty badass with a lightsaber". When asked why she has to act out the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi she tells me it is because her daughter insists on always playing Padme while her son plays Anakin. Wait, she has lightsaber duels with her kids on the living room furniture? I wish my mom played Star Wars with me when I was growing up!

Becky Powell (the real world face behind @OpheliaRising on twitter and author of the blog "Alice in Motherland") plays quite a few roles at home including: wife, mother, writer, star wars re-enacter, and (my personal favorite) fellow Tarheel. I had been following her on Twitter for a few months when I was asked to interview her for the fridgefilters blog. Since her Twitter account is one of my favorite follows I was really excited to have the opportunity to learn more about the real Becky Powell.

One of the things you need to know about Becky is that she is incredibly smart (I did mention she graduated from UNC right?) and puts a lot of effort into taking care of her children. Naturally we spent a lot of time talking about her family and how to raise happy, healthy kids. When she and her husband found out they were going to have their first child they agreed to try and make the healthiest choices possible. Becky set out to learn as much as she could about how to take care of her child, "I read books, ate all the right stuff" she explains and even switched to drinking only bottled water. At the time there were a lot of people saying that tap water wasn't safe and her doctors were telling her to drink a lot of water.

According to Becky that is when she first started to think about the quality of the water she was drinking. Her family has always been very health conscious and so when her second child was born it was back to bottled water, because "it seemed like a healthy choice". She had read up on Bisphenol A and knew to only buy plastics that were BPA free, but then she started following @fridgefilters on twitter. "I read on your blog that BPA Free is not the only toxin in plastics and the thing that really worried me is that they can leach estrogen disruptors". Now she tries to use less plastic, but if you have ever had a baby you know that avoiding plastics is not an easy job.

"Have you ever been to a Babies 'R Us? It's like the evil baby stuff Wal Mart," she tells me "they have everything for babies and so much of it is plastic." To make matters worse for a young health conscious mother she explains they also have a "huge display of Nursery Water, which is steamed, distilled, boiled water with fluoride added." Why put fluoride in water for babies for their formula when the babies teeth haven't even emerged yet? Oh, and Nursery Water also comes in large plastic containers. Which reminds me, never mess with a mom, especially not an informed one.

So Becky and her husband stopped buying plastic water bottles and switched to tap water. Their refrigerator had a water dispenser with a filter so they started using only water from their fridge. What she did not do was remember to change the water filter in her refrigerator. Ironically, Becky explains to me that her husband works in heating and air and often has to remind homeowners to change their air filters. It is really easy to forget to change your fridge's water filter, but you really can taste the difference. Becky found that out recently when she got a new water filter and "within a day I felt that our water tastes better. Now our kids are drinking a lot more water. Our kids don't drink a lot of soda, they drink juices and things like that, but I used to have to flavor their water to get them to drink it...now they are okay with drinking it straight from the fridge". The best part is that her whole family is no longer drinking from PET plastic bottles.

There are so many resources available now trying to tell you how to raise your kids and there is no way you can do them all. I asked Becky what her advice would be for other moms. Focus on the things you can control, "for me it is all about making incremental changes for me and my families health." A very special thanks to Becky for taking the time to share her story with me today. You can follow her on Twitter @OpheliaRising and on her blog at "Alice in Motherland".