Striving For Improved Service

Many of you may shop strictly on-line, but if you ever need to talk to a live person to answer a question or to place an order, we have now fully transitioned to new call center locations. This took quite some time and a lot of teamwork. We have a specialized team just 15 minutes from us over in Taunton, MA and we take many of our orders over the phone in Kansas City, MO. This is an exciting year for us as we have dedicated associates focusing solely on our brand. Our prior call centers were taking orders for many different catalog companies and were not as familiar with the products we offer and what we stand for. They were good at what they did, but we feel we have made significant improvements in service and will continue this trend over the months to come. Have you called lately? Do you feel a difference? Chadwicks order line is 800-525-6650 / Chadwicks customer service line is 800-525-4420 Oh, and we're working on a new and improved website as well! Stay tuned... by ROBB

The fight is year-round (not just October)

Good morning! I'm Rob from the Marketing team and as many of you know, we started selling "Change" T-shirts in October. $5 from every sale is going straight to the American Cancer Society Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. They run in four sizes (S-XL), two colors (black & white) and six "Change" messages. The black shirts do not have the ACS logo on the back, but the white shirts do. Click here for details. (You can use a promotion code on these shirts too!)
Countless families have been effected by this disease whether directly, through a close friend, or someone in their community. Help us join the fight as our goal is to raise $25,000 for the cause by the end of 2009. Here's a picture of my two girls. They love these shirts (well... anything connected to Dad's work is fun for them)!

Impressive Quality

I would like to share my wife’s feedback on this season’s fall collection from Chadwicks. She’s a "30-something" mother of three and works part time at two restaurants. I think she has a good sense of style and wants to look good no matter what the occasion. In the past, she hasn’t seen consistent quality from us and had to return a few things, but she thought we had a good selection and most of the time good quality at a great price. In the spring, she noticed some changes in our collection and placed an order for a few tops and a cover up. She was happy with the quality and she has become a good customer of ours.
She also placed an order a few weeks ago and absolutely loves her new tops for the fall. She bought the Dylan blouse in vanilla and the Isabella blouse in black. She was amazed at how far we have come over the last few years, and she told me she gets many compliments on these two blouses. She’s a straight shooter, and I always value her opinion, so I’m happy when I hear good things about what Chadwicks has to offer. I told her if she likes anything else she should order soon as the really hot items go very quickly. We are not like stores where you don’t know when they are out of stock (you don’t miss what you can’t see). This quality upgrade is one of our top objectives moving forward – while continuing to keep our prices low. Has anyone noticed the improved quality of Chadwicks apparel?

ROBB

To buy or not to buy

Purchasing a car is one of my least favorite things to do. I’m not a car enthusiast to say the least. Personally, I think it’s one of the worst investments a person can make. I respect the fact that people like to reward themselves for hard work and others enjoy it as a (very expensive) hobby. Most of my friends are into cars in a big way, used and new.

So it’s time to replace the nine year-old minivan, and I’m not looking forward to a new car payment that I have been avoiding for 5 years. With the kids getting older now, a new mini van was pretty much out of the question, although it was always there in the back of our minds. Our goals were to get something that was safe, not too expensive, had seating for 7+, high trade-in value for the future, and somewhat stylish. Other hopes were to by American (even with all of the problems in the industry), and to take advantage of the cash-for-clunkers program. Unfortunately, we had no luck on the last two.

Personally, I think the Ford Flex is sharp looking for a family car (especially the cinnamon color with the white top). It also has plenty of room for the family. My wife thinks it looks like a hearse. She’s driving it most of the time, so the Flex was out right away. We also looked at the Chevy Traverse. The space was tight and my wife couldn’t see well out of the windows when backing up. When we went back to look at it a 2nd time, the price went up two grand! No thanks. The Mazda CX9 was just as small, and the Toyota Highlander (the only car that qualified for our “clunker”) had a third row that was an afterthought when the car was constructed.

After three hours at Honda last night, I signed on the dotted line for a Pilot. Nice car, smooth ride, reliable, safe, plenty of room and good car to trade-in down the road. The funny part is that every dealer I sat down with was willing to go below invoice, except for Honda. Did I get ripped off? Probably. But I did read that the average customer is pretty much paying MSRP (sticker price) for this car, which blew me away. At least I feel we landed a pretty good deal after seeing that most of the cars on the lot were sold and I did get close to invoice. The next purchase will most likely be a hybrid of some sort once the technology gets to the next level. My family loves the Pilot, and I don’t mind driving my 1998 Mercury Sable with 155,000 miles. As long as I can get from A to B, it’s all good. Are you thinking about buying a car?