Words from the WellRandom Thoughts on Christ, the Church and Technology

14" I Don't think so

One of my big pet peeves is poor customer service.  I’m the type of person that will avoid a company that gives me bad service and return to a company that gives me good service.  In this I don’t think that I am that different from most other people.  This is why it shocks me when I get bad service.  I mean, surely I’m not the only person on the planet that responds to excellent service.  Allow me to share two stories of Customer Service with you.

FTD

About a week ago my sister in law was in what could have been a very serious head on collision, thankfully she was not injured seriously and come home the same day of the wreck.  The next day I went online and ordered her some flowers from FTD.  I also ordered the same flowers for my wife.  That afternoon my sis in law got a beautiful arrangement that looked very much like the photo on the FTD website.  My wife received the arrangement on the left.  I was mad.  I had paid over $60 for that little arrangement.  I went to the website to make sure that I had not gotten what I paid for and sure enough, right there in the description it says that the arrangement is approximately 14″x 14″.  now you can see from the photo that these flowers were no where close.  So I called FTD, explained my problem, and received this response, ” We will be happy to replace the flowers, we will send the florist to pick them up and then bring a new arrangement.”  What?  You want my wife to haul this pathetic little arrangement back to school, instruct the office staff to look for the florist, so that the florist can pick them up?  What are they gonna do with them?  I told them that they were welcome to come pick them up at my residence.  I was told that they would contact the florist and make those arrangements and then call me back.  I agreed to that and emailed the representative a photo.  That was Friday.  By Monday evening, no phone call, no email, no nothing.  I sent another email.  No response.  Tuesday evening I called back, told my story again, got disconnected, called back, told my story again, worked my way up the Customer Service food chain where a supervisor offered my 30% off a future order.  WHAT? Are you kidding me?  You can’t get this order right and you expect me to order from you again?  By now I was over this ordeal.  He asked what I wanted.  A full refund I replied.  “OK,” he replied.  “We will do that as soon as we get the flowers back.”  What’s with wanting the flowers back?  I do not understand this, but I agreed, if they would pick them up at the house.  They wouldn’t.  I pitched a fit.  I also finally got my money back.  Well, at least I got an email stating that they had refunded my money, as of yesterday I have not seen this refund.

What did I expect from FTD?  A little easier time for starters.  I think that it should have gone something like this.  I call Customer Service.  Tell them my story.  Email a picture of the inferior bouquet.  They send a new arrangement. Done.  I would have ordered from FTD again.  As it stands now ProFlowers or 1800Flowers gets my business.

Discmakers

Several weeks ago I sent a project off to Discmakers.  In this process I spoke to my rep there and asked if they could charge my card for 50% of the total on one day and then the other half the next day.  My bank has a daily limit on the card for security purposes.  He told me that would be no problem and asked if I would write a note on the paperwork that they needed so that he wouldn’t forget.  I did just as he asked.  The reason I needed them to do it like this is that I needed credit for paying 100% up front, this allows me to get any extras that they replicate for free, otherwise I have to pay for overs.  (When the replicate DVD’s sometimes they make a few more than you order, these are called overs)

I got a call this week that they were ready to ship my order, but that I needed to pay the balance.  Huh?  I called back and told them what I had asked them to do.  The accounting person knew nothing about this so she transferred me to my Production Rep (different from the original rep I spoke to), He didn’t see anything about it in my file either, but he said, no problem, we will run your card for the original balance, giving you the free overs and ship your order today.  Eezzy Peezy.  They were polite.  I got NO customer service jargon, no scripted responses.  I talked to people that were empowered by the company to make the customer happy.  The result?  I will order from Discmakers again.

The Difference?

Empowerment.  FTD followed a traditional CS model where you have Level 1’s that transfer you to Level 2’s and so on.  Each level has a limit on what they can do to make you happy.  The idea is that they wear you down until you settle for what they are willing to give you.  Discmakers follows a more personal model.  When you place an order you deal with two people.  If you have a problem you call the appropriate person and they handle the issue.  These people are empowered to make you happy.  This doesn’t mean that they can do anything, but they can take reasonable actions to make the customer happy.