I manage an online shop. We sell items shipped from either the Dominican Republic or some of our distributors in the US. So far I can say with certainty that no customer of ours can say that they were cheated out of their money. We, on the other hand have many times taken customers’ words when they say they have not received an item even when we do in fact have confirmation. Some times things just seem to disappear in the air and we always send a new item, more often than not we throw in a complimentary item if we feel that the customer has been sincere about not receive it.
Enters the rare idjit. I got an email from a customer demanding a refund because she did not receive her order. I track her order and low and behold, I notice that she provided an address without street, just state and zip code and repeated her name in the address line. Since I don’t check addresses the order was sent out to nowhere. The order is slowing making its way back to my country, if/when it gets here I’ll also have to pay for the return trip.
I was a bit pissed by her attitude. She does not acknowledge that she made a mistake, even if the emails she received when she paid have the address that she entered. She says “I provided a correct address and I don’t know what happened” (my server ate it I guess). Mind you I am being conciliatory and she knows the order was shipped.
I am adding a note in the checkout page warning customers that we are not responsible if they lose their order because they entered wrong addresses, but since I supposed that it was obvious that we needed correct, complete addresses it never occurred to me before.
Here’s my question: Should I demand she pays for shipping the order again (it will not cover the cost of the return for me)? So far we have a record of 100% satisfaction. I will break even if I reship the order at our expense, but it pisses me off that she is lying.
Expecting people to own up to their mistakes is a sure way to be disappointed in people. That’s just the way people are.
Honestly, you should be checking addresses to ensure they are real. People are not perfect, they will make mistakes, at least you can catch the obvious ones, like what the lady above did. If someone simply exchanges a digit in their zip code, it can take an awfully long time to get straightened out. That is just good customer service, I don’t even think it crosses the realm into excellent, merely good.
If you’ll break even, I’d go ahead and ship it again. No disclaimer on your webpage is going to save you from people making stupid mistakes like this. And while it’s a shame that she’s being such a tool I think you have more to gain by keeping your 100% customer satisfaction rating than to make $20 on shipping charges.
You are right about checking addresses. But it is not always possible to do that when processing many orders. Most times I catch the odd error and confirm the address with the customer. Sometimes it is not obvious (not the case here). What pisses me off is that she is lying, we both know she made a mistake.
In any other case I would most certainly just ship the order again and invite the customer back. I almost certainly will do that in this case too, but I just want to know how other joints handle this and what you think is fair.
If you accept credit cards, one of the security features is address must match that of card, eliminate that error. But other than that I have nothing. We get people say they do not receive the order at first we just refunded or resent the items even though we had confirmation the order got where it was supposed to.
Not anymore, we take it case by case now.
Which is what we do. Even if all previous cases ended in us resending the order. The problem with only accepting confirmed addresses is that some people mail gifts, other send their mails to their office because no one is at home to receive it.
Now, if we somehow end up in the pit I’ll talk about people that file chargebacks, even where there is delivery confirmation. The worst: “That’s *my mom’s *credit card. That’s why she filed a claim for unauthorized use of her CC”. :mad:
Sadly, that is part of the cost of doing business. With our company, even in the face of overwhelming evidence – like a letter from the customer thanking us for the product and stating that they enjoyed it, plus tracking numbers, and other information – usually disputes stand. It’s frustrating.
I would just ship it again unless the cost of shipping the item was extremely high.