Comments on: Running Our Online Store: Highlights And Lowlights Of The Week

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:19:33 +0000

@Jace
I think that I would have lost my cool with the bridezilla that you just described. In general, all of our customers are nice and polite even when they have a complaint. And I always tend to treat polite customers much better than rude ones. Heck in most cases, I’ll go out of my way to help the customers that keep their cool. Hope I never get a bridezilla. Not entirely sure how I would react. Most likely, I’ll hand the phone to my wife:)

By: Jace

Jace — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:39:17 +0000

I commend you Steve, not just for choosing the best option for the customer but just for being in the wedding business at all! I would /never/ enter that market after seeing some of the Bridezillas I’ve seen. If you haven’t seen it yet, there’s an episode of Cake Boss where he makes a wedding cake and the night before it’s due the Bride drops in and says she hates it, he says there’s nothing he can do and when he steps out of the room she destroys the cake by smearing various colored icing all over it. He handled it amazingly (and stayed up all night making another cake) but I would probably have killed her. You’re a bigger man than I and I wish you the best in keeping a cool top with your customers.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:07:22 +0000

@W^L
The strange thing is that this has happened more than once in just this month alone. What’s odd is that usually a notice is left in the mail or at the door. The carrier claimed that 3 notices were left and the customer received none of them. In any case, our general philosophy is that the customer shouldn’t have to worry about how their order arrives. The package should just arrive and that’s that. This doesn’t happen too often so eating the occasional cost isn’t a big deal. I’m not sure if any of our customers have deliberately abused our customer service. In general, I think our clientele is more concerned about our products arriving at their wedding in time rather than trying to cheat us.

By: W^L+

W^L+ — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:16:27 +0000

Steve, I think your response was exactly the right one. Your delivery service may or may not have knocked on the door / rang the bell, so even if the customer was at home waiting for the delivery, she may never have known the carrier was right outside her door.

I’ve also had ‘signature required’ packages just dumped on the porch. If the neighborhood is crime-ridden, that could result in the contents being stolen before the customer goes outside. Once I sent a package to my nephew. The package was delivered to the wrong apartment. It took almost a week to find out who had it.

This doesn’t change the fact that some people may try to misuse your positive customer service to rip you off. Maybe you should tell us (in general outlines) about some of your experiences in that area, too.

– W^L+ (@lnxwalt on Twitter/Jaiku/Identi.Ca)