The JaffeBLEND Blog

Life *IS* just like a box of chocolates!

After my last horrendous customer service experience (The Kooples), I had a fabulous experience with Charbonnel et Walker this week.

This is a premium chocolate brand and I purchased a box of chocs for my husband. To our dismay, there were 2 chocolates missing (see picture).

I called the store a few days later at 4 pm and here's what happened:
- I was trusted immediately. This is huge as I almost didn't call expecting to have to reproduce a receipt which I no longer had. What a relief to actually experience "the customer is always right"!
- I was apologised to with an explanation
- I was offered a replacement box which was posted the same day and arrived 8 am the next morning.

The best part of this experience is that my expectations were exceeded turning me from a good customer to a disappointed customer (missing chocolates) to a fan (and now via this blog post, an advocate!)

This is how marketing should be done, folks. Amen.

I’m Divorcing The Kooples

Today is a sad day for clothing e-tailers and customer service. I have often decided not to publicly vent my frustration with some stores and brands, however today I experienced an incident that deserves for the company in question, The Kooples, to be named and shamed. I hope you agree. Read on …

I purchased a Parka for £495 online. When it arrived, it didn’t suit me so I decided to return it. I completed the online instructions, which involved sending it back. TO FRANCE. WHAT???? At that point, I also read that I could bring it back to a store, so obviously figured this would be cheaper (although it also involved time, petrol and parking costs).

Crime no. 1
Today I schlepped to the store in Hampstead to be told that I could not get a refund and only a credit. So if I wanted a refund I would have to mail it. Here’s the overview of those costs due to the size and weight of the package:
1. £19 basic postage (no tracking, no signature, no insurance)
2. £40 (tracking, signature and £100 insurance)
3. £52 (tracking, signature and £500 insurance)

So basically a customer has to incur £19-£52 own costs for a clothing return in order to get a refund. Utter insanity! Furthermore, which of these postage options would you chose? If you do 1 or 2, you incur a risk of loss of part or all of the value if the item goes missing.

Why-oh-why can’t their central HQ just coordinate to do refunds for web purchases when they can do exchanges? Sure, I get that there is an extra element of admin involved, but just make it happen, people! Don’t lose your customers.

Crime no. 2
While still in the store, the assistant called another store to confirm that a customer is responsible for postage costs and then basically told me. SORRY! I then demanded to talk to someone in customer services and the phone number was written down for me. The sales assistant said she would not use her landline as this needs to be “kept open for customer calls”. Excuse me, am I not a customer?

I then noticed that the phone number was … yes, you guessed it, in FRANCE. That’s a mighty expensive phonecall, but I was determined not to schlepp the big box home with me so I made the call. More costs.

Crime no. 3
This situation now went from bad to worse as I’m put through to “Sandy” in customer service who tells me that it is their sales policy for customers to be responsible for postage costs. Fair enough for companies to define their own sales policies, however here’s where I feel decent customer service is not taking place:
1. Customers Don’t Pay Postage
It’s not very commonplace for e-commerce clothing shops to make customers pay as there is always a high probability of something being returned (as you can’t try something when you’re at a computer screen, of course). Banana Republic provide you with free returns labels. The Kooples is a high end brand with items around £200 upwards so one would expect an equivalent or better service even, not worse!

2. Postage to FRANCE?
If you have to force customers to pay, have it send local, but making them send back to France means exorbitant costs. Once again, make it easy for customers to do business, with you so get them to send to a local store and fund the shipment abroad yourself or introduce the stock back to your local stores.

3. Misinformation
Their website does not display this sales policy clearly or the fact that refunds are not available via the store, thereby causing inconvenience and costs for customers like myself hoping to get a refund in store.

When I point all of this out to Sandy, I ask her to either provide me with a refund in store or cover part/all of my postage costs but Sandy is not interested. I also ask to speak to her manager or a superior and she outright refuses. She says she is in the head of customer service. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Finally, when I ask for her last name she replies “it’s none of your business”. Nice!! Even if she doesn’t want to give it, she could say “I’m not able to provide you with that information”. What a way to talk to a paying customer.

In Conclusion
So off I went to the post office in defeat to send this item back for a refund. I had
to add £3 in packaging tape as icing on the cake!

All in all, a sad day for clothing retailers doing e-commerce online and a sad day for customer service.

All I can do is:
- Boycott the store (I can vote with my feet at least)
- Warn all other potential customers (via this blog post)
- Attempt to escalate to the company (send a complaint letter which will probably be ignored)
- Escalate to other customer bodies in the UK (from the perspective of misinformation)

What else can I do? What should I do or what should I have done? Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please let me know your thoughts.

Boobs, the Customer Life Cycle and Old Stock

One of the areas of marketing I was and am always so passionate about is the Customer Life Cycle. Why? Because it just makes sense from the perspective of companies/brands/products building RELATIONSHIPS with customers rather than making things that sell.

One such company who do it well are Rigby and Peller.

 

On the purchase of breastfeeding bra's, you get a discount for your first purchase of "normal" bra's. Someone, somewhere figured out that eventually women stop breastfeeding, and since the shape of their breasts change (sorry if this comes as a shock to you), they need new bra's. Useful for the customer and for Rigby and Peller, Kerrrching!

Alas, I was disappointed when buying some underwear there today. I had 3 panties (or briefs or knickers depending which word you use in your country) and each were priced differently: 17.95, 19.95 and 21.95. WHAT?? When I discovered this, I asked the sales lady who seemed just as mystified as me. She checked with the manager, who sheepishly explained that "old stock was priced lower and new stock was subject to the stronger Euro"). I'm sorry, but when did your stock issues become MY problem? If they were really smart they would have:

- offered me all 3 for the price of the lowest and admitted that you simply cannot price the same product in 3 different ways AND

- re-pricing all stock at the higher price and increasing overall margins

A company simply should not expect a customer to pay 3 different prices for the same commodity. Currency fluctuations and inventory are NOT the customer's problem and retailers should not expose their clientele to this. 

A final digital note: while R & P are well ranked in Google, if you type the name in with any variations e.g. "Pellar" instead of "Peller" or with ".co.uk" instead of ".com" you do NOT get redirected. Surely companies should be anticipating typo's and claiming these URL's? Or am I the only dumb cluck who doesn't immediately always use Google....? 

My Future is not Bright or Orange

I (finally) decided to start blogging about my good and bad customer service experiences, as this is probably the part of marketing which frustrates customers and frustrates me the most these days. My goal is to draw attention to companies with poor policies and service level quality, in order to help warn others . In an ideal world, the more attention given, the greater the chance that these companies will pull up their socks. Also, after presenting to clients about Jeff Jarvis's Dell Hell and following more recently Joseph Jaffe's Delta Skelter experience, I felt inspired to also put (virtual) pen to paper. This is a long post but the details are essential in the insanity that is my Orange experience.

I've been meaning to blog about this for a few months and as my anger subsides, so does another incident arise fuelling the saga further.

Trying to Sign up

The story began at the end of September 2007. I used to use Orange business when I was at Microsoft and on departure, wanted to retain my phone number. The Microsoft Orange desk advised me to get a new number IMMEDIATELY and they would swap the old one with the new. If I went to another network it would be very difficult so they advised to stick with Orange for the transfer. Simple? Right? WRONG.

• I wasn't sure which handset I wanted so I purchased a SIM only package online – super fast – except one glitch. But what was my new number? This wasn't visible. So I called them to to be told that it would be allocated and would arrive in several days by mail. NO GOOD. I cancelled the order and was told to go to the nearest distributor (CarPhone Warehouse). I dashed out and once there, was told they didn't do SIM ONLY (thanks call center person!) and they directed me to an Orange shop. On schlepping over there and waiting about 40 minutes for a salesperson, I was told that I could only buy SIM-only packages online … not in the store. By then, there was smoking coming out of nose and ears as my temperature was rising. It's now 1.5 hours later.
• I made a quick executive decision to get a phone in order to get a number, just to FIX THE PROBLEM (it was free and I wanted one eventually I wasn't sure which model, so felt pressurized into the decision). The application process took another 40 minutes after which I was told that I would not be allowed roaming for 3 months. WHAT??? Security reasons. SORRY. The whole reason for choosing a SIM monthly package over pre-pay was to get roaming.
• So I cancelled the whole bloody process and bought a pre-pay SIM. Once I was home and tried to activate it and was told "ACCESS DENIED". Apparently my cancelled online attempt and in-store attempt flagged me as a risk. Oh brother. I needed to fax various data to a security center and hope for the best. They would consider my case over 10 days. Seriously???
• Luckily the Microsoft desk were extremely understanding (perhaps I wasn't the first to experience this?) and allowed me to keep the number for a further 3 weeks. That's how long this took to solve. I started over and got a SIM monthly package with a Blackberry Pearl.

Apparently there are lots of unreliable customers out there and even though I've been a business user for 3.5 years, I am considered a complete distrustful fraud and crook and not a new business customer. Nice.

Code Red: Breach of Security

It was plain sailing after that for about 6 weeks until one day I suddenly couldn't make calls. I was in the city with various appointments and was totally paralyzed without my phone. I sped home to phone Orange (maybe E.T. could have helped?) only to be told I was being subjected to a random security check which would be lifted if I merely faxed through a copy of my bank statement. Since I don't have a fax, I went to the local newsagent and sent this through. My day was not going well.

• Called the next day, no fax was received. Call back later, still no fax. Fax re-sent from newsagent.
• Called next day, no fax, afternoon call and still no fax. On hold for countless minutes (hold time average is 15-25 minutes).
• Talked to lots of people in Calcutta, repeated the story a thousand times. I lost track of how many faxes I sent (with confirmation!) and people I spoke to. Sometimes the fax was found and I was promised to be re-connected. This never happened.
• Bought a home fax to make it easier and faster.
• Threatened to take legal action. Still no response.
• After a week, I got a lovely English gent of the phone who could hear I was not a Nigerian con-artist. He re-connected me IMMEDIATELY. Interesting since all the other call center people said it took a few hours to re-connect.
• 2 days later disconnected again. Poor gent had no right to connect me.

Can you imagine how insane I am at this point? It's simply too crazy to concoct. The whole saga took 2-3 weeks, which is completely crippling professionally and personally. I purchased a pre-pay SIM which I used in the interim and informed everyone of my problem to at least be "reachable". Apologies from Orange? Forget it.

Shoot the Racoon

I was initially rather pleased with the concept of the Racoon Package. 1000 free texts, 500 free minutes, unlimited calls to Orange numbers (I stand corrected on the actual numbers) and a free Blackberry all in exchange for an 18 month contract. And all this for the bargain price of £25 (plus £6 blackberry server charges) a month. HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT MY FIRST BILL IS THEN ABOVE £400 ?!?!?!?!. After using nothing short of CSI investigative techniques, I dug deep and found an itemized bill to discover charges left, right and center. Most of which I don't understand although I do figure out that I am paying to receive sms's when abroad and paying massive fees during roaming. The lack of transparency is just infuriating. Now I feel like Orange are the con-artist and I am being conned. Me not liking the Racoon any more.

Broadband Offline

While nothing was as bad as the first 2 incidents, I can't give you the whole picture without mentioning my broadband. This constantly disappears without a warning email when there will be an outage or email saying when it will be online again. Instead you realize that your emails haven't gone through only to reboot your PC, reboot your router and continue to troubleshoot before calling Orange and getting a recording saying there's a problem and they have no idea when it will be fixed. So there I am on a day off with my mother in town from South Africa, rushing to Starbucks to send 1 attachment and pay £5 to use their internet. Thanks Orange. This has happened for three times already which is so frustrating considering I like to work late at night and early morning.

Blackberry Bug

Mid-May I realized some strange bugs on the phone: my call lists were always empty and I wasn't getting all sms's.

• I called the call center (yay, no-one from India!) and was told by an utter moron to delete my calls lists (WHAT PART OF "THEY'RE ALWAYS EMPTY" DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?). After some troubleshooting for dummies (e.g. turn your phone on and off) I was told it should work now. Why didn't I believe that? The test sms arrived. I was sent packing.
• The problem continued and spiraled out of control until I was in Cannes. My life was in complete chaos with everyone sms'ing where to meet. Did I get the sms? NO I DIDN'T. Did I meet up? NO I DIDN'T. I proactively told as many people as possible about the issue which meant I had to call everyone and vice versa. I can just wait to see the impact on my bill i.e. not only from calling South African, US, UK and Dutch mobiles from Cannes but also paying to receive all the calls by sending them from the UK to France. Already very pricy as discovered in my CSI investigation into my itemized bill. Will I get compensation from Orange? I think not.
• So (deep sigh), I call Orange from Cannes only to go through a long hold period (I'm paying for the call of course from France) of 18 minutes. After several questions I am told "Orange can't help you if you're abroad as you're on a foreign network which we can't take responsibility for". BUT I AM ON ORANGE FRANCE!!! My sanity is really being pushed. I am told by the lovely lady that my phone needs to be replaced ASAP as its faulty. I need to wait to return to London. At least the end is in sight.
• 8:30 am Monday morning I call Orange to go through the whole story and be told that MY PHONE IS FINE but has something corrupt. We do a wipe and I'm back in business.

Why couldn't the first person or even the lady I called when I was in France tell me this? What is wrong with their call center training or problem-identification software? Why isn't there a procedure in place to compensate people for financial loss?

This is another example of the disconnect between talking the talk (the advertising) and walking the walk (delivering to the customer). This is what is wrong with companies today and why consumers are increasingly resisting the false promises of advertising.

The irony is that I actually like their advertising. They have a series of cinema ads with celebrities like Rob Lowe, Val Kilmer and Sean Astin which are very entertaining. Why are their sign-up and security processes so Neanderthal? Why are their call centers service levels so inconsistent and poor with such long hold times? Maybe I'll never have these answers but one thing's for sure- I'm dreading the day I switch and need their help to transfer my number. Three full A4 pages resulting in this blog post makes me very nervous. Maybe it's time Orange should start getting nervous …..?