To: Thomas Travers
RQW Books via Amazon.com
Mr. Travers, permit me to introduce myself. My name is Russ Belville and I am the webmaster of RadicalRuss.net. One of the services I provide on my site is a weblog (Radical Writ) where I post my opinions on matters serious and trivial.
My reason for writing today is to inform you that you, Thomas Travers, and your company, RQWBooks, have been nominated for my annual Worst Customer Service of the Year Award. While it is a dubious honor that merits no prizes, it is a source of entertainment and enlightenment for my many friends and family and the hundreds of visitors who browse my site each month.
As a customer service professional — assuming that the word “professional” connotes that one receives a paycheck for performing a service, not a guarantee of the quality of services performed — you must be well aware of the axiom that word-of-mouth is the most highly regarded source of advertising. Positive word-of-mouth brings more customers than the most lavish television commercial. Conversely, negative word-of-mouth can ruin a company’s reputation.
Your nomination comes to me from one of your dissatisfied customers, Mrs. Iva Cunningham of Portland, Oregon. On Wednesday, April 14th, Mrs. Cunningham ordered a college textbook from your company via the Amazon.com web portal. She needed the book delivered as soon as possible for an upcoming college final, so she was delighted to find the price of the book was reasonable and that you offered expedited shipping.
On April 14th, you received this email, from Amazon.com to RQWBooks, confirming the purchase of the book and its delivery date:
Your Amazon Marketplace sale is official! We’ve deposited your earnings from the sale of this item into your Amazon Payments account.
Please ship item immediately via expedited mail.
This email was buried in the body of an email you sent to Mrs. Cunningham, dated April 15th:
Thank you very much for your order of “Principles of Human Anatomy and Physiology, Interactive Learning Guide…”. We have discovered that we cannot provide Expedited shipping for this book. It is so large and heavy, that our costs for Expedited shipping would be enormous and we would lose money on this sale. When we listed the book on Amazon, we mistakenly indicated that Expedited delivery was possible. [Emphasis mine.]
So we have two options. First, we can use “Standard” shipping (USPS Media Mail) to ship the book, provide you the “tracking number”, and issue a refund to you of $2.00. The book would arrive in 4 – 14 business days.
The other option is that we can cancel the order and provide an immediate and full refund. Please let us know your wishes.
We truly apologize for the inconvenience!
Sincerely,
Thomas Travers
RQWBOOKS
So at this moment, April 15th, your company has been paid for the sale of the book. You had advertised the availability of expedited shipping. The fact that your “costs for Expedited shipping would be enormous and we would lose money on this sale” is therefore your problem, not Mrs. Cunningham’s. She paid for the book, you received the money for the sale, you advertised the book could be shipped expeditiously.
When a customer orders expedited shipping, it is usually because there is a severe time constraint on the receipt of the book. If you were truly apologizing for the inconvenience, your company would own up to its mistake, suffer the small loss on the sale, and mail the book expeditiously as advertised.
Instead you chose to withhold the delivery of a book desperately needed for a final exam and offer the customer the opportunity to suffer for your mistake by either receiving a $2.00 refund for a book delivered too late for the final exam, or a full refund for a book never delivered at all. Either choice causes your customer to suffer because you made a mistake.
This transaction alone would be enough to merit distinction for the Worst Customer Service of the Year Award. However, when Mrs. Cunningham replied to your emails, your continued correspondence demonstrated that in addition to not owning up to a mistake in advertising, you were more than capable of berating, insulting, and patronizing a customer who was justifiably angry at your actions. Mrs. Cunningham attempted to email your company to resolve the issue, stating that the mistaken advertisement was your problem and she needed the book immediately.
On Friday, April 16th, you emailed the following to Mrs. Cunningham:
Well, we were in the process of contacting you for the third time since yesterday when we noticed your 1 star rating. You can see from the email below our first attempt to contact you. Your confidence that we had not contacted you is laughable. And even if for some reason you did not receive any of our messages, most human beings would have tried to work out the problem amicably. But alas, that’s not your style. Further, if you cannot receive simple text messages via email, you should contact your ISP and figure out what’s happening.
In all of our years on this planet, we have yet to find someone with such super-human mean-spiritedness. You’re remarkable. Yes, we made a mistake, and immediately tried to fix the situation. At the end of the day, you have all of your money back and only lost a day or two getting the book. We’d hate to see your reaction in the case were someone actually treats you badly. Hope you enjoy your life like this.
Sincerely,
Thomas Travers
RQWBOOKS
This is such an outstanding example of poor customer service that it really needs to be deconstructed to understand the true audacity of exchange.
“Your confidence that we had not contacted you is laughable.” Not only does your company falsely advertise expedited shipping and expect the customer to have to suffer the consequences, but when the customer writes to inquire about the lack of communication regarding the issue, your company characterizes the customer’s inquiry as “laughable”.
“…if for some reason you did not receive any of our messages, most human beings would have tried to work out the problem amicably.” It is entirely possible that computer problems or misfiled email can happen. Spam corrupts all of our inboxes, so perhaps a reply was moved to a junk folder. Instead, you choose to imply that the customer is somehow not like “most human beings”.
“…if you cannot receive simple text messages via email, you should contact your ISP and figure out what’s happening.” Ah yes, once again, like the false advertisement, it is the customer’s fault, not possibly a computer glitch at your end or her end. (By the way, I am an IT professional with over fifteen years experience in systems engineering and I can assure you that Mrs. Cunningham’s computer, ISP, and email functions are all performing correctly.)
“In all of our years on this planet, we have yet to find someone with such super-human mean-spiritedness. You’re remarkable.” Here’s where the tenor of the exchange moves from just arrogance and poor service to insults and degradation. Is there a business reason why your company feels a need to make ad-hominem attacks and impugn the character of a customer? And really, in all the years you’ve been alive, you’ve yet to find someone as mean-spirited as Mrs. Cunningham? Perhaps Osama bin Laden, Pol Pot, or maybe Adolf Hitler? Nope, this one female college student is the most remarkable example of mean-spiritedness on the planet.
“…you have all of your money back and only lost a day or two getting the book.” But the whole point of ordering from your company, with its guarantee of expedited delivery, was to have the book in a day or two. Having the money back is irrelevant; having the book quickly was the important part. So here you are patronizing the customer, giving her a pat on the head and saying, “there, there, mean little girl, you have no reason to be angry.”
“We’d hate to see your reaction in the case were someone actually treats you badly.” I would judge that being lied to in an advertisement, being asked to suffer the consequences of someone else’s mistake, and being insulted and patronized should count as being treated badly.
“Hope you enjoy your life like this.” There’s nothing like a little dash of sarcasm to really add that good customer service flavor!
Mrs. Cunningham, being the mean-spirited person you assume she is, then sent you this email in response to your unprofessional diatribe:
I have ordered a book that I need badly, you made a mistake and listed the shipping for far less than it would cost to ship this book priority. This is not my problem. I need this book, I did not receive any e-mails from you that stated you made a mistake with the shipping. Please send the book I requested.
Maybe she didn’t receive your emails. Maybe she didn’t read far enough down the replies to see your non-choice of a late book or no book. So she states her position and asks you to send the book. She may be confused, she is definitely desperate, but nowhere do I see the mean-spiritedness you describe.
Your response to that request reads like this:
Evidently, you have not been receiving our emails, or have not been reading them, or do not understand them. We are really not sure which. On Sunday, April 18, we emailed you to explain that because we had refunded your entire payment through Amazon for your original order, that we could not ship the book to you until we received payment again from you. And we explained that the easiest way for this to be accomplished would be to use PayPal, and we had PayPal send an email to you so you could conveniently make the payment. Had you responed to our request for you to make the payment for the book using PayPal, we would have shipped the book on Monday April 19. But we heard nothing from you.
Iva, this is the situation: Your original order with us through Amazon has been cancelled and you have received a full refund. The orginal order is dead. You are free to obtain the book by any means you wish. If you had responded to our emails, the book would have been shipped to you a long time ago. But it is impossible to communicate with you.
Thomas Travers
RQWBOOKS
Again, let’s deconstruct:
“Evidently, you have not been receiving our emails,…” Entirely possible.
“…or have not been reading them,…” Again, shifting the blame to the customer. If she is desperately trying to contact you and is receiving the emails, why would she not be reading them? Your implication seems to be that your customer is ignoring you, which makes no sense at all.
“…or do not understand them.” And if blame-shifting won’t suffice, let’s call the customer an idiot. Even though she is a college student who already has two undergraduate degrees, she’s incapable of understanding your eighth-grade vocabulary level.
“…we explained that the easiest way for this to be accomplished would be to use PayPal…” Of course! Your customer ordered a book from you through Amazon.com, and used a credit card to receive that order, which you advertised as being shipped by expedited means. But since you made a mistake, not only will you not ship the book, but now the customer should have to go through the hassle of paying you more money through a different means, because that would be easiest for you.
“…it is impossible to communicate with you.” Apparently not. You seem quite capable of insulting, haranguing, patronizing, offending, demeaning, degrading, and frustrating with a flair rarely seen in commercial email.
“Had you responed to our request… The orginal order is dead…” Evidently, you have not learned to type, have not learned to spell, or do not understand the Spell-Check feature. We are not really sure which.
Well, that’s it. I’ve gotten word that the judges have decided. Congratulations, Mr. Travers! You win the award for Worst Customer Service of the Year. But don’t think that means your accomplishments will go unrewarded once 2005 rolls around. No, this email will be documented forever at RadicalRuss.net, posted to every weblog and discussion group I can find regarding online merchandising, and printed and mailed to the appropriate departments at Amazon.com.
Sincerely,
Russ Belville (a.k.a. Iva Cunningham’s husband)
P.S. Please respond. You have such a way with words that I would be delighted to continue our email exchange. I’m sure you can find a plethora of ways to express your feelings about this email, and I would be happy to share your words with my audience!)
P.P.S. To anyone else reading this email, feel free to let Mr. Travers know your opinion of his customer service. His email address is [email protected], and his email address is [email protected].
____________________________________________________________________
|
_ | "RADICAL" RUSS BELVILLE | Read More at http://radicalruss.net/blog/
| Portland, Oregon U.S.A. | Permission is granted for reprint of this
| © 2004 by Russ Belville | post, as long as this footer is included.
