What a Customer Service Failure Taught Me About Brand Accountability

By Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor

5:02

When you make a high-consideration purchase: a luxury mattress, custom flooring, high-end appliances, you’re not just buying a product. You’re buying confidence. You’re trusting that someone, somewhere, will know what customer service is and have your back if something goes wrong.

It started in 2021 after I gave a keynote at a bedding conference. A dealer chatted with me afterwards for over half an hour about customer service. Later, he offered to help me find the perfect bed. He said he could find it based on my answers to just three questions. He sold me a Vispring, “the best you can get unless you want to spend double.”

Built in the UK. Sustainable. Since 1899. ✅

The mattress arrived. Heavy. Beautiful. Built like a tank. We followed the instructions to the letter, rotating it every two weeks, despite its nearly 200-pound weight.

By day 80, a pronounced lump had formed in the middle. Not a bump. A lump. It felt like sleeping in two coffins.

I texted the dealer and asked, "Is this normal?" He told me, “Yes and no. Keep turning it. It’ll go away".

It didn’t.

A Breakdown at Every Level

When the lump didn’t improve, I reached out to Vispring customer service in the UK. I found the experience frustrating. Emails came back with my name consistently misspelled. After weeks of back and forth, they convinced the dealer to send out an independent technician to conduct a "string test"-a physical depth inspection of the mattress.

The tech arrived, ran the test, looked at his ruler, and said, "Wow, look at the difference between here and here."

I thought the report would trigger a replacement.

It didn’t.

I emailed Vispring. "We haven’t heard from the dealer. They have to authorize any replacement."

I followed up with the dealer. No response. I emailed again. I called. I got nothing.

Coincidentally, I was doing a keynote speech a few weeks later and realized the store wasn’t far. I drove over and walked in. The owner’s son was there. He told me Vispring had recently changed how they measure replacements and that they - the store - were "fighting for me."

It didn’t feel right.

I walked out the door and emailed Vispring directly: “Did you change your mattress replacement guidelines?”

They replied: “No, the current measurements have been in place since 2011 and no changes to this test or the estimates have been made.”

Now I was livid. I reached out to their national sales manager and told him he could stop this before it blew up. No response.

I hired a lawyer and wrote a two-page letter demanding satisfaction, which I sent to both the dealer and Vispring.

Nothing.

I wrote to their customer service one last time and received the reply: "there will be no further communication."

Two years had passed.

The Power of a Single Review

In January 2023—nearly two years after the original purchase—I got an email from Trustpilot:

"Would you like to review your Vispring mattress?"

Yes. I would.

I wrote an honest review.

Two weeks later, my phone rang. Caller ID: United Kingdom.

It was the new Managing Director of Vispring.

He said, "I just read your file. I don’t think you were sold the right mattress to begin with, and we clearly didn’t take care of you the way we should have. When you’re next in New York, go to our showroom. Find the bed that’s right for you. We’ll make it right. No red tape. This never should have happened."

And he did.

I’ve had the correct bed for over two years and it sleeps great. But I never forgot the stress, the pain, and the lack of response from the original dealer.

What Retail Leaders Should Learn

This wasn’t about a mattress. It was about accountability, customer service design, and how brands scale trust.

Here are five lessons any C-level retail leader should take away:

Your frontline owns the first impression.
- A luxury experience starts and ends with the people customers interact with, not your brand's story or mission statement. The people.
Silence is more damaging than a bad product.
- Most customers don’t want revenge. They want resolution. When no one responds, frustration can lead to brand erosion.
Escalation should be engineered, not accidental.
- Lacking a clear way to escalate a problem can make your customer feel trapped. Build in touchpoints where someone senior can step in.
Today’s reviews are yesterday’s warning calls.
- One bad review, if seen by the right person, can be a gift. It’s a signal. But waiting until the review goes live is already too late.
Leadership is proven in the aftermath.
- The Managing Director didn’t just replace a product. He repaired a relationship. His call didn’t remove my memory of that dealer, but it restored my trust in leadership.