Photo By Najeebkhan2009

What struck me as odd about this particular customer was that she had such a messed up ideal about business and economics. In fact, all of her assumptions about how to obtain discounts and how pricing works were completely skewed. Here’s a transcript of the conversation. Thank goodness, my wife took this call and not me.

Wife: Hi miss, what can do for you this morning?

Customer: Yes, I would like to purchase some handkerchiefs and I was wondering if I could get a discount.

Wife: That’s definitely possible depending on the quantities that you want to order

Customer: Oh ok, great.

Wife: What can I get you?

Customer: I’m looking at the lace hankie with the scalloped edge. Do you have that one in stock?

Wife: Yes, but since we are running low on that style, it will depend on how many you need.

Customer: Oh I need 3 sets. What is the discount on 3 sets?

Wife: I apologize miss, but there’s no discount on just 3 sets. An order that size would not meet the minimum threshold.

Customer: How about if I just buy one set? Is there a discount then?

Wife: I’m sorry. If you want a discount, then you would have to purchase at least 15-20 sets.

Customer: WHAT!?!?!? That’s absurd! I don’t need 15 sets. Ideally, I want 3 but I’ll just get one for now if you can give me a deal.

Wife: Uh….that’s not the way it works. The price goes down the MORE that you buy, not the other way around.

Customer: What!?! That doesn’t make sense. Did you know that I’ve never purchased from your store before?

Wife: Oh? (sounding confused…)

Customer: Did you know that once at customer makes a purchase, they are far more likely to make a repeat purchase?

Wife: Okay….(where is this going?)

Customer: So by selling me just one set, I might very well buy a large quantity from you in the future.

Wife: Uh huh…

Customer: So…you should give me a discount, make me a happy customer and then I’ll come back and I’ll even tell my friends about it.

Wife: …..

Customer: I guess you haven’t been in business that long.

Wife: I sincerely apologize but we can’t give you a discount on such a small order.

Customer: Well you just lost a loyal customer and I’m going to buy these hankies from someone else.

Wife:…sorry miss but…

Customer: Tell me who your main competitors are!

Wife: Excuse me?

Customer: Tell me who you compete against.

Wife: Huh?

Customer: TELL ME WHERE ELSE I CAN GO so I can buy these handkerchiefs from someone else instead of you.

Wife: Sorry miss, but you can do a search online to find other vendors of handkerchiefs.

Customer: You just lost out on my current and future business. You really should rethink your discount policy.

Wife: Feel free to shop around. Our prices are very competitive.

***Click***

It’s amazing how some people have such skewed perceptions on how to save money and how discounts work. I’m not sure where she learned her business ideals but her approach was definitely not the way to get a deal.

The funny thing was that this lady called back about 30 minutes later and made a purchase from our store. She didn’t mention that she had spoken with us just 30 minutes ago. She was extremely polite and placed her order as if the first phone conversation with my wife never happened. Go figure!

Photo By MSMail

But every now and then, someone pays for an order by echeck. And it’s a royal pain in the arse because one, the customer expects us to ship out their order right away even before the check clears and two, their check sometimes bounces. This particular customer had her check bounce on us and called us in a fit of anger.

Customer: You owe me 22 dollars!

Me: I apologize ma’am. What did you just say?

Customer: You owe me 22 dollars and I demand that you pay me back.

Me: I’m sorry, can we please take a step back? Did you make a return that was not refunded? If so, do you have an RMA number?

Customer: No, I do not have an RMA number. In fact, I never received my order. The only thing I received was an overdraft fee for my account.

Me Hold on….Do you have an order number that I can look up?

Customer: Order xxxxx. You charged the wrong account and I got charged an overdraft fee.

Me:: Hold on one sec…Ok. It shows here that you paid by echeck and that your check was recently declined.. I apologize, but we can’t ship out an order when the check hasn’t cleared.

Customer: Yes! It didn’t clear because you guys used the wrong checking account to withdraw my funds. As a result, I had to pay a 22 dollar overdraft fee and I’m not going to pay it. You are!

Me: I’m sorry ma’am. But we use Paypal as our third party payment processor. I assure you that we have absolutely no idea about your checking account. If funds were withdrawn from the wrong account, then you must have supplied the wrong account information.

Customer:I don’t care if it’s you or Paypal. Your company withdrew funds from the wrong account and I got charged a fee.

Me: Once again, both Paypal and our company do not have any knowledge of your bank accounts. We only know what you entered when you made the purchase.

Customer: Fine!! I’m going to give Paypal a call right now and call you back.

**Click**

Phew! At this point, I hoped that Paypal would tell her the same thing and that we’d be done with this transaction. Unfortunately, she called us back 3 days later.

Customer: I can’t believe you people!!!! I just got charged another 35 dollars in overdraft fees. I called my bank and it says that you guys tried to withdraw the funds again from the wrong account!!! Now you owe me 60 dollars!

Me:Huh??? We haven’t touched your order or issued another Paypal transaction at all. We are simply waiting for your echeck to clear which it hasn’t.

Customer:: That is because you issued another charge to the wrong checking account! You know what? I’m fed up with you. Cancel my order and I want my 60 dollars back.

Me:: Hold on ma’am. It looks as though Paypal retried your payment again this morning. It says here that Paypal automatically retries denied echecks after 3-5 days. It looks like Paypal automatically tried to withdraw funds again from the same account. Did you ever clear this up with Paypal?

Customer: CANCEL MY ORDER!! I want a full refund and I want 60 dollars to cover the overdrafts fees!

Me:(Actually, it’s only 57 dollars in overdraft fees. This lady can’t even do math). Technically, we never successfully received payment from you so there is no money to refund. I’m sorry, but once again, we have no knowledge of any of your accounts. The fact that funds were withdrawn from the wrong account is because you entered the wrong account number when you filed your echeck. We will promptly cancel your order right now and Paypal will no longer reissue any charges. If you have any further issues, please take it up with Paypal directly.

Customer: I’ve already contacted Paypal and they won’t do anything.

Me: Well, unfortunately we can’t either.

Customer:I’m never shopping here again!!!!

**Click***


Good riddance. Technically, she never shopped with us in the first place because she NEVER PAID! The scary thing is that this isn’t the first time that this has happened with an echeck purchase. I wish there was a way to disallow echecks altogether. Who uses checks anymore anyways?
.

Photo by Dana-2

It’s funny because as he was telling me these things, he was expecting me to look surprised and shocked but instead, I just stood there and smiled. After running our online store for the past several years, stories like this don’t faze me at all anymore. I’m well aware that there are a ton of people out there who don’t know how to use a computer very well and they all happen to shop at our store. This particular customer called to place her order over the phone because she was having problems pulling our website up.

Customer: Hello? Yes, I’d like to place an order over the phone please.

Me:Sure no problem. What can I get for you?

Customer:I’d like to order some personalized handkerchiefs please.

Me: Actually ma’am, would you mind placing your personalized order online? We’ve found that it is easy to make dictation mistakes over the phone and we want to make sure that your personalization is done correctly as you intended.

Customer:Actually, I’ve shopped at your store before and I would love to place an order online except your website is down.

**Pause**

Me:Really?(Frantically trying to access our page) Actually, everything seems to be up on my end. (I then went ahead and VPNed into work to see if my work machines could access the site. Nothing was wrong). Would you mind trying again?

Customer: Nope, it’s still down.


This got me a bit worried so I decided to take this opportunity to have her do a little bit of debugging for me.


Me:Ma’am, would you mind trying to access a different site for me just to make sure that your connection is working? I apologize. I just want to make sure that there is nothing technically wrong with our servers.

Customer: Sure I don’t mind at all. The last webpage I was looking at is still working. Seems connected.

Me:Can you hit F5 for me?

Customer:Webpage is still up.

Me: That’s really odd. I can access our page perfectly. In any case, let me take down your order.

Customer:You know what? All of a sudden, I can’t access any webpage anymore. What happened?!? Can you help me?

Me: Uhh….Is your computer still connected to the network cable?

Customer: I use wireless so there is no cable. Hmm, I wonder where Linksys went? It was there this morning.

Me:I’m sorry?

Customer: Linksys is what I connect to every single day. But it’s no longer here.

Me: Ma’am, you might want to go ahead and reboot your wireless access point. In any case, I’ve put your order through and you are all set.

Customer: My what?

Me: Your wireless access point. You know, the box that allows your computer to connect to the internet?

Customer: I don’t own one of those… Do I need one?

Me: Yes you do. But in the meantime, you can just connect your computer directly to your modem or however you get your internet service.

Customer: I’ve never done that before. I don’t think I have one of those.

Me: The modem is usually sent to you by your internet service provider. You pay a monthly fee which allows you to have internet access. Then, you need a wireless access point so you can connect wirelessly.

Customer: You must be mistaken because I’ve been using the internet free for the past year.

Me: I’m afraid not ma’am. (I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she’d been stealing access this entire time)

I’ll spare you the details of the rest of our conversation, but this poor lady was in shock. Not only did she come to the realization that she could no longer access the web, but she wasn’t willing to pay the money for access either.

I also discovered that when I told her to hit “F5″ to refresh her browser, she had typed in ‘F’ and then ’5′. The only reason that she thought that her internet was still working was because she hit the ‘back’ button on her browser and was looking at a cached webpage.

If you want a few more laughs, I found this tech support video online the other day. It’s pretty funny if you have a free moment.

Photo by azrainman

I wasn’t just being careless either. Being a paranoid person at heart, I always do a fair amount of testing every time I make even the most minor of changes. But I probably wouldn’t have caught this particular bug for a long time unless this customer called and saved the day.

The Customer

We were really lucky that this particular customer decided to call in and place an order despite the fact that our website was broken. I would imagine that most customers who saw this bug would probably have left without saying a word.

Customer: Hello? I’m on your site right now and I can’t seem to locate the product that I want. I’ve shopped here before but ever since you changed the layout, I can’t seem to find a thing!

Me:We apologize for that ma’am. Periodically, we make a few changes to our website to keep things fresh. What can I help you find?

Customer: Well I’m looking for your embroidered shoe bags. You used to have a menu which I could click on, but it has disappeared. Your new layout makes it hard to find anything.

Me: I’m sorry about that, but the menu hasn’t changed at all and I can see the menu just fine. A few changes were made to the store several weeks ago, but they were all very minor and didn’t affect navigation.

Customer:Well I can’t find anything anymore. I’ve shopped here before and I’m telling you that the menu is missing.

Me: That’s really strange and I apologize. I’ll have someone take a closer look at our website right away. In the meantime, we do have your shoe bags in stock and I can just take your order over the phone.

Narrowing Down The Issue

After I got off the phone with the customer, I immediately went through every page of the website but I could not notice anything wrong or different with our online store. I even tried all of the browsers on my PC, IE, Firefox and Chrome.

Normally, I would have brushed this problem off because we get a ton of customers who barely know how to use a computer. But this particular customer seemed competent so I took this issue a bit more seriously. Ultimately, I decided to call her back and graciously asked her to take a screen shot, post it into Microsoft Word and email it to me.

When I saw the screenshot, I was appalled. Our menu navigation sidebar was in the completely wrong place. Instead of being alongside the products, it was now pushed all the way down below everything on the site. If you didn’t scroll down all the way, you would never be able to see it!

The Bug

Turns out that this customer was using an old version of Internet Explorer and I had hit one of the many Internet Explorer 6.0 bugs out there! The specific bug that I hit is described at length here. But in a nutshell, Internet Explorer was adding extra pixels to one of the new sections of html code that I added which made that section bigger than it was supposed to be.

As a result, anything on the right side of the screen got pushed down the screen and made the entire website look broken. Since I do all of my testing on Firefox, IE 8 and Chrome, I never would have noticed this problem at all if this customer had not sent me a screenshot!

Checking The Demographics

I was under the impression that most people out there had stopped using Internet Explorer 6.0 and below. After all, I read recently that Adobe and some other software manufacturers were dropping support altogether.

So I decided to check the analytics for my online store and I was pretty shocked. The majority of my customers use IE 7+8, but a full 17% are still stuck on IE 6.0! A fraction of a percent are even using IE 5! Do these people not perform automatic updates?

Based on this data, it is clear that I still have to test for IE 6.0. Unfortunately, I don’t have it installed nor do I want to have it installed on my machine ever! So what can I do?

Browser Compatibility Testing

Fortunately, there are several services out there that can help you test out your site on every web browser known to man. Personally, I now use Browser Shots. You simply enter a URL, check off which browsers you want to test and click on the ‘Go’ button.

Then depending on the number of browsers that you have selected, images will start popping up on the screen immediately that tell you how your website looks on the various browsers.

Don’t click on too many different browsers otherwise the test will take forever. Instead, what I do is select the browsers that make up 95% of my clientele. In my case, it’s IE 6-8, FireFox and Safari.

Personally, I need to beef up my Safari testing. Because of the iPhone and the increasing popularity of Macs, Safari seems to be gaining market share at a rapid pace.

The Moral

Don’t discount cross browser compatibility even if you are making the most minor of changes. I was just looking through the buglist for IE6 and it is ridiculously long! There is no way that you can possibly learn and account for all of its shortcomings.

Check the analytics for your website and do cross browser testing on the most popular browsers for your site. It’s a pain in the butt, but you could be alienating a significant percentage of your clientèle if you don’t. If this customer didn’t call, I could have lost 17% of my business just like that!

Photo by Alan Clark Design

Take our online store as an example. 90% of our customers complete their purchase from our online wedding linens store without ever contacting us. And whenever this happens, it’s difficult to make a strong impression. We have not personally interacted with the customer in any way and the point of sale is just another sale. Sure, the customer might like our products and they might mention our business to a few of their friends. But most likely, their purchasing experience just blends in like any other.

The best way to spread positive word of mouth about your online business is by having an interaction with your customer. And the best way to shine with your customers is by dealing with negative situations with a positive attitude.

Go out of your way to fix bad situations even if it isn’t directly your fault. I’m not saying that you should sabotage your business to get customer calls but when disaster strikes, think of it as an opportunity and not a calamity.

The Delivery Screwup

Recently, we had a customer place an order with us about 10 days before her wedding. Because she was having a destination wedding, she needed her order at least 5 days prior in order to catch her flight. To make matters more complicated, her order consisted of a variety of personalized handkerchiefs that required custom embroidery.

Under normal circumstances, we usually ask the customer to allow at least 5 days for any custom items to be created prior to shipment. This made the timeline relatively tight using standard shipping methods. But the customer absolutely did not want to pay extra money for rush delivery(we charge $30). Under the circumstances however, we felt very confident that her order would reach her on time because she lived in the same state and only 60 minutes away.

In any case, we bumped up the priority of her order and managed to ship out her order the following day. Just as a precaution, I personally followed up on the status of her order to make sure that she received it on time. Sure enough, the tracking on her order indicated that it was delivered the following day and well within her deadline.

3 days passed and I thought things were all good until I received a call from this customer. In fact, when I first picked up the phone, I was expecting her to thank me profusely for delivering her order in such a prompt fashion. Instead, I got this…

Customer: You told me that I would receive my order on time but I still haven’t gotten it and now I have a plane to catch! Where is my order?!?!

Me: That’s strange. I tracked the status of your order personally and you should have received it well over 3 days ago.

Customer: Well I haven’t received anything! I need my order by tomorrow morning by 8am!

Me: I apologize. Let me see what happened. Oh man! The tracking on your order says that your package was delivered to the wrong address and was being resent! I swear that just the other day, the tracking page indicated that your order was delivered properly.

Customer: Well clearly, it wasn’t! You do realize that I have a plane to catch right? Can you send me another set ASAP?

Me: I’m sorry ma’am. Even if we had another set of hankies custom embroidered, we would be unable to have them shipped out today. It’s already too late in the day (It was already 6pm).

Decision Time

At this point, I had two options. I could make an excuse and state very clearly that we are not responsible for our delivery carrier’s actions. After all, if this customer wanted to guarantee a specific delivery date, she could have selected “Express Delivery” which we absolutely guarantee.

The other option was to take a loss and go out of our way to rectify the situation. The choice was tough because there was a fair amount of money at stake and I had to make this choice in a little under ten seconds. After all, I couldn’t really handle this situation half ass. I either had to wholeheartedly try and help or turn her away. For me at least, I personally hate it when companies try and weasel their way out of paying only to give in to your demands after you have yelled and fussed.

Ultimately, I choose to help her out. We had her order custom embroidered that night and we shipped out her order directly to her wedding venue via express mail first thing the following morning. And let me tell you, rush shipping is not cheap by any means!

The Aftermath

Ultimately, the customer received her order on time. 2 weeks later, I received the following message.

Steve,

I just wanted to sincerely thank you for your assistance in this matter. You were prompt, helpful and sympathetic while solving the problem immediately.

It is so rare to receive such proactive and efficient customer service. Thank you treating me like a person instead of a number. I will recommend you to everyone I know.

Was It Worth It?

We lost money on this transaction but did it matter? I’m sure that this customer probably told all of her friends or at least her bridal party about her experience with our online business. And I’m 100% positive that whenever any of her friends or acquaintances require wedding linens, she will point them our way.

While it’s difficult to quantify the effect of a good customer service deed, I have to believe that eventually all of the good karma will catch up to us someday. If anything, it sure felt damn good to receive that email from the customer. In fact, I would argue that her testimonial itself was worth every penny.

Photo by Bah Humbug

Customer: Yes, I’d like to order 10 sets of 3 of your white embroidered hankies please.

Me: Of course. Is there anything else I can get for you?

Customer: Nope that will be it. Is it okay if I place my order over the phone? I don’t trust giving out my information online.

Me: No problem at all. There are many people that feel the way you do. Could I start by getting your name please?

Customer: Yes, my name is Para. Para Noia.

Me: Hi Para, could I also get your billing address as well?

Customer: Is it okay if I give you my PO Box instead of my home address?

Me: Sure no problem as long as it is your billing address.

Customer: Actually, it is not the same.

Me: Ma’am. I apologize but I need your billing address if you wish to pay by credit card.

Customer: Sure.

** Silence **

Me: Hello?

Customer: Yes. My PO Box is my billing address for the card I’m going to use. You’re not going to send me any junk mail are you?

Me: (Didn’t she just say that it wasn’t her billing address?) No ma’am, we won’t send you anything except for your order. Could I get your phone number?

Customer: I don’t feel comfortable giving it to you.

Me: We aren’t going to sell your number to anyone. We only will use your number if there’s any issues with your order.

Customer: Do you anticipate any issues with my order?

Me: No, but just in case.

Customer: Well, I’ll take my chances. Once again, I don’t feel comfortable giving it to you.

Me: Ok, no problem. But as it stands, we have no way of contacting you in case something happens.

**Uncomfortable Silence**

Me: Could I get an email address to send you a receipt?

Customer: Do you know how much junk mail I receive every day?

Me: I’m sorry? We won’t send you any email except for your receipt.

Customer: No thank you.

Me: Ok….and finally I need your payment information.

(She then proceeds to read off her credit card info)

Me: And I also need the 3 digit number on the back of the card by your name.

Customer: I’m sorry I don’t give that number to anyone. I shop online all the time and I never have to give that number out.

Me: Um…..ok. We usually need that number. If I have any problems charging your credit card, I’ll have to contact you. (Though I had no idea how to get ahold of this lady if that happened).

Customer: Ok what’s my total?

Me: Let’s see your hankies come out to $98 and shipping is $9.95. Oooohh. Did I mention that we offer free shipping on all orders over $100? You are only $2 short!

Customer: Oh really….Is this some sort of trick to get me buy more?

Me: There’s no trick ma’am. If you order an additional set of hankies which costs $9.80, you’ll get free shipping which will actually save you money overall. Plus, you’ll receive an extra set of hankies.

Customer: So what’s the catch?

Me: There’s no catch. It’s just one of our policies. Free shipping on orders over $100.

Customer: The last time I was told something was free, I was charged a bunch of hidden fees. Last time I purchased my computer, I was automatically signed up for a variety of services I didn’t want. When I bought my….(goes off for 3 minutes).

Me: I assure you, there are no hidden fees. As it stands right now, your order will cost you $107.95. If you purchase just one more set of hankies, your order will cost you $107.80. You’ll save 15 cents and you’ll get additional hankies. It’s a no brainer really.

Customer: Well I don’t want anything free. I just want exactly what I ordered and nothing more! Please do not try to sell me anything else or try to tack on additional costs for things that I don’t need!

Me: But you’re actually going to save money…

Customer: NO! Just put my order through and please stop harassing me!

** click **

So there you have it, the most paranoid customer we have ever had. She must have been ripped off many times in the past in order to have developed into the shopper she is today. I hate how poor business practices create baggage for customers even when dealing with the honest guys!

Me: Why yes we do but it depends on the quantity of handkerchiefs that you need.

Customer: Actually I was looking to purchase around 50.

Me: Actually for just 50 hankies, the best we can do is free shipping.

Customer: Really? That’s it? After all, I’m purchasing 50 dozen here.

Me: Oh 50 dozen! Sorry about that. For those quantities, we can probably offer you 25% percent off including free shipping. May I ask why you are looking to buy so many? Do you run a business?

Customer: Actually, we are looking to sell custom embroidered handkerchiefs for weddings and other special occasions.

Me: Interesting. We do the exact same thing here at our store!

Customer: I’m very aware of that.

** Silence **

Me: (Ok, that was awkward) Ah yes. Well even still, we have no problems selling you blank handkerchiefs for your business.

Customer: I’m sorry but 25% off is not going to cut it. You are way too expensive.

Me: I apologize ma’am, but that is probably the best we can do. Depending on the style you choose, we may be able to do a bit better but not much. Keep in mind that you are receiving free shipping as well. If you take the time to look around, you’ll come to the conclusion that our prices are competitive with other wholesalers in the industry.

Customer: Yes I am aware of that but your prices still just aren’t cutting it. Where did you say you get these handkerchiefs from again?

Me: Well, most of our handkerchiefs come from different manufacturers in Asia.

Customer: Where do you get them from?

Me: Well specifically, we get some of them from China and some of them from India depending on the handkerchief style.

Customer: (Getting audibly frustrated) Who do you get these handkerchiefs from?

Me: Oh, are you worried about the quality? We hand inspect all of the merchandise prior to shipment to ensure that you receive only the highest quality merchandise. We also have a money back guarantee.

Customer: Perhaps, I’m not being clear enough. Who do you buy your handkerchiefs from?

**Silence**

Me: Excuse me?

Customer: Who do you buy your merchandise from?

Me: Our vendors are in Asia ma’am.

Customer: How can I say this more clearly? What is the company in Asia that you purchase your handkerchiefs from?

Me: I apologize ma’am, but we don’t give that information out to customers.

Customer: All I need is an email address or a phone number.

Me: I apologize ma’am. We would be happy to special order these handkerchiefs for you but we respect the privacy of our vendors.

Customer: Well, your prices are not good enough for me to make a profit on my products and I require better pricing.

**Silence**

Customer: Hello?

Me: Let me get this straight and please correct me if I’m wrong. You are planning on opening a shop that competes directly with our online store selling personalized handkerchiefs. You want us to provide you with our rolodex for our vendors in Asia and you want to bypass us altogether and purchase these handkerchiefs directly from the manufacturer.

Customer: Actually I’m just looking for merchandise at the lowest possible prices.

Me: Sorry ma’am but if you are looking to source products for your store, you’ll have to do your own leg work. We would be extremely happy to supply you with blank handkerchiefs for your online store but we will not provide you with information regarding our manufacturers.

Customer: I see. Well you are missing out on a large order here. If you can offer us a better price, we will continue purchasing from you in the future.

Me: Unfortunately, that is the best price that we can offer you at the present time. You might want to contact Walmart to see if they carry handkerchiefs. Perhaps Lee Scott can help you with where they source their items.

Customer:: Oh. What was the name again?

Me: Lee Scott (CEO of Walmart)

Customer:: Thank you, I’ll give them a call.

** Click **

Can you believe this lady had the nerve to ask us for our vendors? She was just looking for the easy way out instead of doing her own research. Did she really expect us to just hand over our rolodex? When will people learn that there are no shortcuts to starting a business?

Not to mention the fact that she came across as a complete mercenary. Even if we met her pricing requirements, would she become a loyal customer? She certainly didn’t come across that way. In retrospect, we were probably better off not having to deal with this lady as a customer at all.

Photo By Nalilo

Me: What can I do for you today?

Customer: Yes, I found your website the other day via the world wide web. But today, I was unable to find your store again. Fortunately, I jotted down your phone number. Is your website still available?

Me: Yes ma’am, we are definitely still around. We can be found at www.fakestoreaddress.com.

Customer: For some reason I can’t find fakestoreaddress.com. Are you sure your website isn’t down?

Me: Yes ma’am, I’m on our site right now.

Customer: Oh wait, I think I found it. Ok great. I was looking for your “Something Blue” Wedding Handkerchief. Can you help me locate it?

Me: Sure. Click on “Wedding Handkerchiefs” on the left hand column and then click on “Something Blue Handkerchiefs”.

Customer: I don’t see any such category on the website. All I see are a bunch of wedding favors.

Me: Are you sure? The left hand column is clearly labelled with a link entitled “Wedding Handkerchiefs”.

Customer: I just don’t see it. Like I said, I see a lot of pictures, but nothing on the page says “Wedding Handkerchiefs”.

This was really strange. We don’t sell very many items and “Wedding Handkerchiefs” is one of our most prominent categories.

Me: Are you sure you can’t find it? It’s in bold on the left hand column.

Customer: Hmm, there’s a search box here. Let me type in handkerchiefs… Okay, I see something here called “Something Blue” handkerchief.

Me: Ok great. Put that in your shopping cart. I’ll walk you through the checkout process over the phone.

Customer: Thank you so much. Ok, the item is in my cart.

Me: Ok. Click on the checkout button and fill in the required fields such as your name, address etc…

Customer: Ok, give me a moment. I don’t see a checkout button but there is a button here telling me to complete my order…Ok filling in my information. Give me a sec.

Me: Sure thing.

Customer: Ok, I filled in all my information. Am I done?

Me: Not yet, you need to click on the “Confirm” button to finalize your order into our system. It’s located in the lower right corner.

Customer: I see a “Complete Order” button. Ok, clicking it. Alright, it looks like it went through!

Me: That’s funny, I don’t see a record of your transaction on my end.

Customer: Are you sure? My screen clearly indicates that the order went through. Let me check my email. I think I have an email confirmation.

Me: Really? That’s strange. I don’t have any record or anything. Would you mind reading it to me?

Customer: Sure. It says “Checkout Complete” for 1 Something Blue Wedding Handkerchief at $9.99.

Me: Hmm. The product name sounds correct but the price is wrong. What else does it say in the email?

Customer: At the end, it says “Thanks you for shopping at www.IGotTheWrongStore.com”.

Me: Huh??? That is not our store. You just bought your hankie from one of our competitors.

Customer: What? I don’t understand how that could have happened. I just typed “wedding handkerchiefs” in Google and then clicked on the first link. I did exactly what I did last time.

Doh! The Google rankings change practically everyday. No wonder this lady couldn’t find us. She didn’t know how to enter a web address!

Me: I’m sorry ma’am, but you just purchased something from a different store.

Customer: Oh really? If I was at the wrong store, I don’t know how I got your phone number.

Me: It’s probably because our spot in the search engines changed positions, but never mind. Is there anything else I can help you with?

Customer: Nope. I got what I wanted to get. Thanks!

Me: Thank you for shopping…er…not shopping at www.fakestoreaddress.com.

**click**

I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with this lady and didn’t even get a sale to show for it. What’s even worse is that I think she clicked on one of our Adwords ads to find our website originally. I should have known something was fishy when she wasn’t seeing the same buttons and links I was describing, but I couldn’t put it all together in time.

Maybe next time I should check if our competitors have an affiliate program I can join.