A Happy New Year tip to my blog readers …
My husband turned forty a couple months ago, and our kids wondered what they could get him for a gift. I happened to know that he was interested in a few specific business books . (Hey, I wouldn’t read them myself, but he seems to enjoy them!) I tried to locate the books through our local library and its interlibrary loan service, but had no luck. I also looked into buying them new, of course, but one was out of print and the other was out of our price range. (Business books can be expensive!) So I brought the kids to Abebooks, my trusted source for used books online.
Abebooks is a conglomerate of several independent used booksellers, so the key to buying multiple used books through their website is to find a single seller with all the books you want … this saves you lots of money on shipping. To our delight, we found all three of Dad’s wish list titles were available through a seller called BetterWorld books. We bought all three for a grand total of ten bucks, including shipping.
The books arrived. We wrapped them. Dad opened them. It was a Happy Birthday.
A day or so later I got this note by email:
Hey Loree,
We’re just checking in to see if you received your order from Better World Books. If your order hasn’t blessed your mailbox just yet, heads are gonna roll in the Mishawaka warehouse! Seriously though, if you haven’t received your order or are less than 108.8% satisfied, please reply to this message. Let us know what we can do to flabbergast you with service.
Humbly Yours,
Indaba (our super-cool email robot)
I was, well, flabbergasted. Perhaps I am just old, and jaded by years of generally inferior customer service, but this was an impressive email. It made me smile. It also made me want to know more about Indaba and her company. So I went to the BetterWorld Books website.
Folks, there is a reason this company is called BetterWorld Books. These passionate booksellers—who are also saavy and unabashed entrepreneurs—are working hard to make the world a better place. They are doing it by matching used and unwanted books with new owners, by saving tons of books from landfills, by using a portion of their profits to fund literacy initiatives around the globe. I have placed several additional orders with BetterWorld Books, and I am officially in love.
Know what else? I think that if you read who they are and what they do, peruse their mission statement, understand their three bottom lines and peruse their incredible collection of books, you will fall in love too.
When was the last time a company you did business with inspired you to be a better citizen? I ask you.
Happy New Year!