I just recieved an email from an online retailer expressing concern that I had placed something in my basket but not gone on to buy it. Here’s a couple of quotes.
[Simpsons Comic Book Guy]
Most. Intrusive. Customer Service Email. Ever.
[/Simpsons Comic Book Guy]
You know what?
I didn’t immediately figure that clicking on the “Mix Me A Case” button would automatically place a pre-mixed case of all wines from the page that I was on. I must have had that button confused with the pick-your-preferences Wine Wizard. So, upon finding a pre-mixed case (that I hadn’t intended to select) in my basket, I chose to remove it from my basket.
I may change my mind about purchases again. Customers do. I hope I don’t recieve an email asking if I want assistance every time that happens. I would find that more intrusive than any number of special-offer marketing emails, or even any number of spam invitations to join underage farmyard bukkake webrings. I understand it’s an important part of your role as marketing people to find out why people don’t buy, and to see if you can rework things so that they do buy instead. But you should understand that it’s no part whatsoever of my role as customer to justify myself to you every time I change my mind about a purchase.
Lukewarm regards,
Tansu.
I’d only gone to the bloody site because I’d recieved a bloody voucher to spend there. Bah. Baaahh!
I’m sure this is a horribly weak thread. The thing is, I object to the feeling that I can’t change my mind about something, or remove something from the shopping basket that I hadn’t fully intended to put there (yes, Tansu VERY STOOPID, she not know it would go in basket, she sure she allowed on internet on own?) without being badgered about it. If I dare to put something back on the shelf in a Real Life shop, I don’t get chased down the street or tailed to the pub by a robot monkey personal shopper.
And it’s not a stick up my ass. It’s a rare Iroko wood butt plug carved by Amazonian Indians. So there.
I realize that by posting in the Pit you are not necessarily looking for any sort of rationalization. But, here I go anyway: I also work in retail. These are troubling times for retailers all over. I was just in the midst of a sale that went horribly wrong and the lady huffed out. Now I’m ready to slit my wrists. If I knew where she’d parked I’d be out there waxing her car. Anything to make her come back and buy something. In this climate someone had the bright idea to follow up with people who removed items from their baskets. How can we make it better? I admit the email you received was on the pushy side but if you had replied, “I really wanted the wine delivered by someone in a gorilla suit” I bet they would have set it up just to make a sale.
Gimme a break! Spooje is right, it’s GOOD customer service on their part. Have you ever complained about poor customer service, lack of followup, lack of someone to help or answer questions? Have you ever complained about an online feature or function that works poorly? Oh wait, we know you have done THAT:
Gee, those assholes! They should fix that shit, shouldn’t they? But you say:
So you’re complaining about a poor design/purchase feature, then bitching that they’re asking for input on how they can improve??? Why didn’t you just email ‘em back with your first paragraph, fer cryin’ out loud!
BTW - For them to email you, you had to give ‘em your email address, no? Did you read the privacy policy? Did you read the terms & conditions? I’ll bet the fact that they will do this is in there somewhere. If you don’t want a retailer doing perfectly legitimate “can we make this work for you?” type followup, don’t freakin’ give 'em your email address! Save your email address for the bukkake spammers you’d rather hear from :rolleyes:
Now some food for thought: While I’m the first to say you’re free to dislike it (even if I think you’re being silly), it’s done because it’s a huge source of potential revenue. MOST shopping carts are abandoned, and if retailers can figure out why and correct it, they’ll make huge gains in revenue.
As stated before, if you TOLD them that you found the button misleading as to what would happen, perhaps they could change it and be better! Other things like “you didn’t tell me the shipping charges until the bitter end” or “you didn’t explain your security to me and I wasn’t comfortable putting my credit card in” are eminently fixable.
So I think you can expect more of the same in the future. Retailers are likely willing to risk occasional ire like yours to gain even a few percent more “conversions” of shopping carts.
Some cites you might read before you weigh in on this again:
It’s my understanding that folks beginning a web-based shopping session and then bailing out before completing a purchase because of problems / confusion / frustration / just-plain-bad-organization on the web site is one of the biggest problems facing web-based retailers today. It sounds like that particular website is just being proactive in its attempts to find out why people are bailing out in the middle of their shopping sessions.
In this case, they may well appreciate being told that you didn’t realize that their “mix me a case” option put something in your shopping cart so that they can fix an ambiguity on their web site before annoying more potential customers.
I emailed them with a more polite version of the first and second paragraphs (with the bit about preferring to get porn spam instead removed). I did think it fair to let them know what ambiguity on their web site had caused the problem.
Maybe I’m an intrinsically vile person, but my first mental image on reading the thread title was of a salesperson quirking an eyebrow and saying, frostily, “Madam is aware that edible underwear is not returnable?”
But enough of that … from the point of view of someone who works in e-commerce (when my boss is looking), yes, finding out why people abandon baskets is important … but, given sensitivities about spam, this is the wrong way to go about it. Yes, there’s a legitimate reason for the email, yes, there’s (however tenuous) a pre-existing commercial relationship which excuses it … but we are all far too aware of our inboxes filling up with pyramid schemes and infallible penis enlargers* for this email to be seen as anything but an annoyance. And the fact that a customer can accidentally create and fill a shopping basket indicates sloppy design somewhere. Pick it up in testing, boys and girls, no need to pester the customers in order to find your own design errors, it’s only Bill Gates who gets to use his customers for beta testers.
[sub]I’m always getting these. Talk about coals to Newcastle.
Sorry, folks, but I’m with Tansu on this one. First of all, it’s amusing that even after the jibe about the butt-plug (in effect saying: “I know I will get the ubiquitous posts about being uptight”), those posts still appeared.
Second, I don’t see why web retailers should be so concerned with items removed from baskets. Anyone who’s shopped on-line should know that it’s pretty much part-and-parcel of doing business on the web. I’ve encountered sites that won’t even tell you the fucking price until you actually get to the check-out page. I understand that it’s a strategy to try to increase sales, but THEY have to understand that there will be a lot of people who are going to bail out once they get all the info. If you don’t present the info until the last page, then what do you expect? I realize that it’s a minority who are doing it this way, but there are tons of other reasons why a shopper might need to change their shopping cart. Maybe they accidentally put in an item twice; maybe the shipping came out to be prohibitively expensive. It could be anything. If a retailer is genuinely concerned that navigation problems on their site might be driving away customers, a less intrusive way to get feedback would be to provide a link for suggestions on the site itself. Sending unwanted emails isn’t going to get customers back.
Oh, and I just realized that my last point was already made by Steve Wright, but I’m posting it anyway.
It would creep me out a bit if I picked up something in a store planning to buy it, returned it to the shelf, then had Helpful Retailer come up and start asking me questions about why I’d changed my mind and what could be done to assure me a Fulfilling Shopping Experience.
If I want to vent/share/exchange consumer thoughts, I will certainly do so and having a receptive audience at that time would be nifty.
Otherwise, it’s pushy. Not a big deal, but maybe enough to encourage me to shop elsewhere.
Really? I’d be thrilled. I usually find myself spending extra money to shop at retailers that provide that level of service (e.g. Nordstrom).
So let me ask you this: if you were in a clothing store, picked someting up, put it back and a salesperson walked up and said “is there something I can help you find?” or (also common) “are you finding what you need?” then you’d be annoyed and maybe not shop there again?
Personally I’d say “why yes…” or “no thanks.” and be done with it depending on if I needed assistance. Likewise with the email in question, I would either say something like “why yes, gimme free shipping and we’re done” or “no thanks” (i.e. spend <1 second to hit DELETE button) and move on…
It’s about the same thing as what you’re saying, and having served my time in retail, I can assure you that it was absolutely precipitate by you picking something up and putting it back: that’s one of the “signals” we were keyed to look for. ESPECIALLY if you picked it up, walked around with it, and then put it back (i.e. retail equivalent of ‘in your shopping cart’)…
Considering how many places I no longer patronize specifically because nobody ever tried to help me, I’d really hate to see us sending retailers a “mind your own fucking business unless I permission you to try and help me” type message… Actually, there’s little I hate more than a store where no help is available unless I go find a “help desk” and say “excuse me, I’ve been wandering around here for 20 minutes, can someone help me?”
But Tansu does make one really good point (which I breezed past before). IF (and it was a conditional in her post, no input on whether it is so) it happens EVERY TIME you go in/out of the shopping cart, it becomes annoying. If a clerk walks up to you offering help EVERY TIME you put something back on the rack, it’s annoying. In stores, a clerk will ask and then back off. The site in question should, during a visit, with a cookie, through a ‘preferences’ option or in some other way ensure they’re not hounding you repeatedly. THAT I will readily agree is obnoxious.
That kind of question lets me say yes or no thank you or initiate alternate questions. It’s a wee bit different from asking me why I’d returned an item instead of buying it. I don’t owe an explanation and communicating this takes a little bit more of my time than I feel obligated to give.**
And if many online retailers start doing this or variations thereof (“I see you visited our online store but didn’t buy anything, please tell us what we can do to make you a satisfied customer”), I guess you’d have no problem whacking your way through the extra spam. Hey, how long can it take to hit that delete button a few more times?**
ATTENTION! CUSTOMER IN AISLE THREE IS HANDLING MERCHANDISE! PREPARE FOR IN DEPTH INTERVIEW!!
Somehow I am reminded of a certain telemarketer, who told SDMB denizens that by owning a phone we have invited her solicitations.
I just wanna buy stuff, or not buy it. I don’t want to explain my reasoning. I don’t want to give the cashier my vital statistics and address. I don’t want to discuss why I am not interested in your store’s charge card.
Some shoppers just have that opt-out kind of personality. Deal with it.
Jackmannnniiiii: Just who are you telling to “deal with it?” Me? I just flat out don’t care… The retailers? Per my first post (paraphrase: they’re willing to risk your ire against the gain they’ll make by more sales), they probably don’t care that much either…
Also, though this might scare ya’:
ain’t that far from the truth. If you think you’re not being scrutinized in a store, you’re quite mistaken (at least this was true 20 years ago when I worked retail, but don’t see why it would have changed except to get more pernicious)… They’re not just watching what you’re up to, but they have a play-book of the “right” response to whatever you’re doing (i.e. “right” = results in most sales). Manipulative, no? Doesn’t bother me particularly, but it apparently gets your goat.
I still think freaking out about this is an absurdly disproportionate response. I’m still going to skew my business to places that DO make an effort to serve me (hell, I like it when they full-on suck up to me!)
But whatever you or I may say to each other, I think you’ll have a hard time avoiding this sort of thing, it’s only going to become more prevalent whether you like it or not.
There’s one sure solution: don’t give 'em your email address.
