- Sometimes items are missing. No problem, those can be easily compensated. Insert smiley face here.
- Sometimes items are broken. No problem, those can be easily compensated. Insert smiley face here.
- Sometimes an item is not in stock. No problem, you either choose to replace the item with something else or the item's price is reduced from the bill. Insert smiley face here.
- Sometimes you place an order, get the delivery and notice some items have not been delivered. You check the list you submitted into the online ordering system but then they simply vanish from the order confirmation/delivery. Insert a pout here.
Ah. We have a problem, Houston. Ordered items seem to have disappeared. Vanished. Like they never existed, let alone ordered. Poooooof. Magic.
Yesterday it happened again. I usually do not care so much because I can always pop to the supermarket and purchase the missing item (as it has "vanished" from the order, it hasn't been included in the bill). But this time, the item was nearly 40L of water and my only reason for ordering it was not having to carry that load myself. But the water never came. I saw online I had ordered it but it had disappeared from the confirmation. No notification of items being out of stock, no nothing. Interesting.
As an old customer service specialist (back in the day, long long ago, before electricity), I thought I'd inform them that they might have some online glitch which makes some items disappear from the order. I composed a rather dry, neutral e-mail to the customer service, explaining what had happened and asked if they had any idea why this order went how it went.
Promptly, I received a reply which pretty much said: "Ordered item was out of stock, you must have missed the information about it on your computer screen. What you order is not relevant, only confirmation counts. Thank you for your understanding, blah blah blah".
I see. I am dumb. A bimbo. I don't know how to order stuff. Hell, I can't even walk and chew chewing gum at the same time. I was in the wrong. Sorry. You're correct. Silly for me to question your holy system.
As a thumb rule... You never accuse a paying customer being in the fault/too dumb/being ignorant. You say "oh, I'll put this to our IT team to look into", "it was the scary monster under our bed that did it", "it was the Martians". Anything but the customer. Do. Not. Blame. The. Customer. Because when you turn it to be the customer's fault, you can be sure that you'll now get Mrs. Marvelous pretty angry.
So I e-mailed again. This time not so neutrally.
Yes I have been ordering around 27 times a year so I know how things work. In the same order another item was out of stock, it notified about it and we replaced the item with another one. Also, if the item has been out of stock but the order went through without notification of it, we've received a text message before delivery that the item will not be delivered. All this is ok.
But what is not acceptable is items vanishing into thin air without notifying the customer. As we placed the order and the system didn't alert that the water was out of stock (come on, it's a friggin' pop up with big red letters, only missing a klaxon sound) we couldn't replace it with another brand. If Mrs. Marvelous doesn't get a notification, she thinks everything's fine and dandy like cotton candy at Disney Land and is expecting the item to be delivered. Which didn't happen. Which is why I contacted the customer service in the first place.
And their reply was....
....It was.....
Yohhooooo....?
....Anyone there....ere....re....? *echo echo echo*
Indeed. I forgot customer service here works differently.
I have been Switzerlanded.
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