Serious Business: How Not to Keep Customers

Today’s post was going to be about the outfit I wore to my auditions (because it was awesome) but sadly I’m not finding any good pictures of my threads online.  Polyvore really let me down here, as I wanted to put together a little display so you all can see how totally wonderful I must have looked.

Instead I’d like to tell you the story of something that happened to me this past December, and how we, as small business owners, can all learn a lesson from it.  Here goes.

In December I was shopping around for a neti pot.  My cheap Walgreen’s version had already been packed, so I wanted to take the opportunity to get myself a nice one.  I shopped online and eventually found a nice looking, handmade neti pot on a website I had never heard of.  I had my suspicions, since I hadn’t run across this particular site before, so I poked around and a bit and it seemed decent.  I put in my order, then checked their shipping information page.

I read that it would take 1-7 days for my order to go from “processing” to “shipped”.  Not terrible, considering it was the holiday season.  However, after 7 days passed, I got concerned.  Two emails to the company went ignored, and then a third.  I paid through Paypal, and of course they have a limited time frame for disputes.  Since this company obviously didn’t care about my business, I filed a claim and hoped to get my money back.

To cut the suspense right now, I’ll tell you that I did eventually get my money back.  It took awhile though, because they weren’t responding to the Paypal claim either.  Once they did respond, I got an email that had me rolling on the floor with laughter; I believe the scientific term is ROFL!!!!1

They were quite upset that I filed a dispute.  Apparently is was just a simple stock issue, in that they had no more neti pots in the color I requested.  More pots would come in in X amount of time; I was to immediately close the dispute and they would ship my order, but would not ship unless I closed the dispute.

Are you rolling around on the floor with me?  I was to trust a company who had ignored my order and my emails?  Wow.  Wow.  I sent a stern email in response, describing how unacceptable this whole thing had been.  My money was refunded.  A few days later I got a nice email from them letting me know that I could place my order again because the green neti pot I wanted had been stocked.  Needless to say, I ignored that email.

Even as someone who owns a small, handcraft company, I can understand why the general public are wary of giving money to small businesses.  Companies like this make us all look bad!  So lets take some lessons here:

1. Most importantly, keep the lines of communication open.  No matter what is going on, don’t ignore your customers.  If at all possible, get out in front of it!  Your customers will be grateful that you are keeping them in the loop.  They understand that things happen, and that small businesses aren’t going to function like Amazon and the like.  Chances are, that’s the very reason they’ve come to you.  If you can’t get something out on time, say something.
2. Keep good stock.  I personally don’t keep much of a stock due to the nature of my products.  If you can build inventory without sacrificing quality, you should do so.  This will avoid situations like mine in the future.  Of course, things run out and orders come in at bad times.  This leads me back to #1.
3. Don’t be ridiculous.  Your response to customer service issues shouldn’t make the customer fall over laughing while simultaneously weeping for humanity.  Its really unbelievable that this company expected me to close the dispute, thus rendering myself unable to pursue any kind of refund through Paypal if I didn’t receive product, before they would make good on an order already paid for.  

I debated whether or not to post the name/wesbite of this company.  Saying bad things about others usually only serves to make YOU look bad, this I understand and I endeavor to uphold this truth.  However, because I think the folks at myworldhut.com/myherbalhut.com are purely scammers, and because they “sell” natural-medicine-type products and could potentially be scamming my customers, I’m going to spread the word.  I most certainly wouldn’t do this lightly, but I think we have a responsibility to each other on the internet to share information like this.

I suppose I should have titled this post, “Beware of Scammers”;  I really, truly believe that’s what this company is.   We can still take lessons from them though, because we may make mistakes in our business practices that could lead others to think we are scammers, too. 

Advertisement