How to avoid a "miffed" customer

As an opinionated person, I tend to attract people who also have strong opinions. My good friend Meg is a great example of this phenomenon. After eyeing each other competitively across the lecture halls in college, we realized we were stronger as partners than as rivals, and thus began a great friendship (not to mention an A-collecting academic powerhouse, if you must know). Recently, Meg had an experience with Lands' End that she wanted to share here. Below is Meg's account of her customer service adventure. Enjoy!

There's nothing like realizing the birthday party you were invited to weeks ago is just days away. Not to mention having the perfect gift in mind and knowing that the monogrammed item you want to give most likely will not arrive in time for the event.

Well, there are in fact worse things that can happen.

With a week to spare (six business days to be exact), I knew I wanted to get Monica a Lands' End tote monogrammed with her nickname, "Miss D," in her favorite color, yellow. After a quick online search, I found what I was looking for, but soon realized that I had to call customer service to select a colored monogram. Fine, I could handle that. Upon calling and placing my order, I was informed that Lands' End was having some shipping delays and could not guarantee any sort of delivery time frame due to flooding in the area. Understanding that natural mini-disasters can not necessarily be blamed on Lands' End, I took the $8 hit to upgrade my shipping, prayed to the flooding gods to relent and crossed my fingers. The customer service rep assured me that the flood conditions were continuing to improve and the item should arrive within the next 5 days. Sounded good to me!

As promised, said package arrived within the next few days – yippee! A success! In my excitement I ripped open the package to examine Monica’s gift and voila! The bag I ordered, in the right color and size! And...and...and...who the hell is "Miff D?" The monogram was totally wrong – I couldn’t believe it. What a bust. I should have known it was too good to be true. My spirits dropped as I reach for the phone to call customer service once again.

The Lands' End agent promptly picked up – no automated recording. She introduced herself and asked how she can help. I explained the situation and urgently noted that while today was Tuesday, the correct gift was needed for the coming Sunday. She looked up my order number and read off the mistaken monogram – “'Miff D’ is that correct?” I clarified the “sssss” sound, and was informed that, apparently, f's and s's are commonly confused over the phone. The agent put me on hold and the voice that returned to the line introduced herself as a customer relations manager. I was astounded that this had happened, considering that I didn't even ask to speak with a manager.

The manager was immediately apologetic about the blunder and asked me what could be done to fix the situation. I explained that the tote was intended to be a gift and promised that if it could be re-monogrammed and shipped to arrive by Saturday, I would forever be a grateful and loyal customer. She continued to apologize for not confirming the monogram before the order was placed, adjusted my order, and prepared a new bag to be monogrammed and shipped for a Friday arrival. Moreover, she suggested I wait for the new bag to arrive before sending "Miff D" back to the warehouse, free of charge, of course.

On Friday morning while at work my phone rang – my mom. I knew the bag had arrived. She opened the package to confirm that everything was perfect. “Okay, here it is. Black right? It looks great! Oh, uh oh. Hang on, you didn’t want “Mipp D” did you?” I panicked, made a huffy breath sound and felt my blood pressure shooting up. “Just kidding!” My mom finally said. Hilarious.

Phew! That was  a close one. Although I was on the edge of my seat the whole time waiting for this gift, it did in fact arrive on time and exactly as I had intended, thanks to Lands' Ends amazing customer service. A+++

They've been spending most their lives livin' in an Amish Paradise

This past weekend, I traveled to the heart of Amish country for the wedding of Rich's friend from college. After a lovely wedding, reception, and after-hours party in the hotel lobby on Saturday night, a group of Rich's friends all decided to meet for brunch on Sunday morning. After a bit of a search (apparently Sunday brunch is unheard of out in farm country), we discovered what appeared to be a quaint, family-style restaurant with a sign that listed "Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner." It seemed like the perfect destination for a delicious breakfast.

As we approached the front door, we were appalled by a sign declaring that NO breakfast was served on Sundays. Bewildered, we debated whether to find another restaurant, but decided in the end that we could, if we must, skip straight to lunch. It was just before 11:00 a.m. when our party of 10 (plus baby Jack) was seated.

We opened our menus, and after a moment, began to look around at each other in confusion. The only items on the menu were full dinners: turkey, roast beef, fish filets... all served with mashed potatoes and gravy, plus your vegetable of choice. None of us one could imagine eating this kind of meal so early in the day, but we felt stuck.

As we tentatively made our selections, I quickly grabbed the kids' menu that had been placed in front of Jack and asked the waitress if I could order a grilled cheese. The waitress hesitated, eyed Jack (who was happily mashing a banana with his fists), and wrote down my request.

Sensing an opportunity, Jack's grandmother pointed to the kids' menu and whispered "Can I see that?" The waitress stopped her in her tracks. "I only let her ::points accusingly in my direction:: order from the kids' menu because the baby isn't ordering any food." Disheartened, Jack's grandmother ordered a bowl of beef barley soup.

Our orders taken, the waitress brought over a basket of rolls that can best be described as mini hot dog buns. Since there didn't appear to be enough to go around, Radu flagged the waitress back to the table.

Radu: "Excuse me, can we have another basket of rolls?"

Waitress (visibly confused): "How... many... do you want?"

Radu: "Uhhh, about 4 or 5?"

Waitress: "Baskets?!"

Radu: "Noooo... rolls."

The waitress spun off, still looking way too confused for such a simple request. She returned a few minutes later and reported that each additional roll would cost $0.40. Astonished, Radu jokingly told her to put it on his tab. She had no idea what to think, but did bring the additional rolls a few minutes later.

Needless to say, the meal was almost unbearable for everyone except me with my grilled cheese, Jack with his banana, and Jessica, who ordered a piece of pie. Rich (who would eat breakfast for every meal of the day if he could) seemed to be gagging with each bite of mashed potatoes and gravy, and others at the table were seen to be picking at their string beans, glazed carrotts and potato croquettes (actually, those looked kinda good, probably because they most closely resembled home fries).

Since we were the only people in the restaurant without white hair and a checking account at the New Holland Savings and Loan, I guess I can cut the place a little slack for not knowing what to do with a bunch of "city" people. But no breakfast on Sundays? When breakfast is offered EVERY other day of the week, why deny it on Sundays? Is the restaurant really losing money by keeping some extra pancake batter on hand for one more day? There have got to be enough tourists, wedding attendees and people under 80 years of age to take advantage of a home-cooked country breakfast on Sunday. I know they've got to offer "dinner" at 10a.m. for the old people who have been up since 4a.m., but what about the rest of us?

Okay, so they really have something against breakfast on Sundays. Fine. What's the deal with only allowing one "baby waiver" per table? If someone else had had a baby at the table, would two people have gotten to order a kids' meal? Why not just charge for an adult meal and allow people to at least eat what they want?

The extra-bread-charge was the last straw for me. In a restaurant with no more than two elderly people at the same table, a party of 10 might be a rare occurance, but the waitstaff should also know that a big party means a big check, and thus, big tip! Why nickel and dime us for something as insignificant as bread? It's almost like we were unwelcome houseguests where the hostess was just being polite by offering food, when all she really wanted us to do was leave.

Because I feel kind of bad bashing this small-town restaurant, I'm going to leave out the name (which contained an Apostrophe Catastrophe, I might add), but I'm giving a solid check minus.

New shipping option: FASHION EMERGENCY!

The upcoming wedding of my boyfriend's friend from college recently gave me an excuse to buy some new party clothes. With the dress (a gorgeous Calvin Klein from Filene's Basement, thank you very much) out of the way and the shoes settled on, I realized I needed a matching handbag for the occasion. With our departure date for the Pennsylvania wedding just over a week away, I knew I was cutting it close. But I set off on an online shopping journey anyway, confident that the ever-available option of expedited shipping would solve my problem.

After an exhaustive search, I added my perfect yellow faux-crocodile oversized clutch (I needed one of those anyway) to my Ebags.com shopping cart and proceeded to the checkout. I consulted a handy chart to see which shipping option I should select in order to receive my coveted clutch no later than next Wednesday, and found that NONE of the delivery options would cut it. Due to my addiction to Amazon's free 2-day shipping, this left me baffled. So, I picked up the phone and called Customer Service.

I reached a live customer service representative quickly (a plus), and I'll also give her props for being pretty friendly. However, she was ultimately unable to do anything to improve the situation. Ebags.com's 5-day warehouse turnaround time is, apparently, set in stone (for this particular product, at least). I find that sort of unacceptable. Lots of - if not all - online shoppers are accustomed to the convenience of overnight or expedited shipping when needed. My idea of expedited shipping is 2 or 3 business days - not 6.

[Rich points out that Ebags.com might not keep inventory of the items they show on their site. When I place an order, they then have to order that item from their supplier, adding another layer and additonal time to fulfill my order. I don't really care about this. We live in a world where instant communication and streamlined inventories are expected. Figure it out.]

Ebags.com has a great selection and friendly customer service, but they need to do one of two things: either offer standard expedited shipping on every item and delight customers every single time they place and order, or give their customer service team the option of rushing orders in the case of a fashion emergency such as mine. Check minus for Ebags.com.

Resolution: I couldn't possibly live without this bag and had no luck finding a suitable alternative from another vendor, so I had it shipped to a friend who I would be visiting en route to the wedding. I hated to give my business to Ebags.com but couldn't stand the thought of an unsatisfactory alternative. ::sigh::

High__ _____ wire___ _______ ______ performance

There is a T-Mobile ad running on TV right now that bugs me for a couple of reasons. The ad is about a transient, couchsurfing twentysomething who spends the 30-second spot gushing about the great coverage he gets from T-Mobile in whatever disparate corner of America he happens to find himself in.

First of all, as a T-Mobile customer, I'm going to dispute the claim of stellar coverage and call quality. I haven't found this to be the case. I'll often miss key parts of what the person on the other end of the phone is saying to me, resulting in confusion for me and aggravation for my caller ("What? You want me to pick up a man on a farm?! Huh? Ohhh.. pick up some apples from the man at the farmstand? Yeah, I guess that makes more sense.").

The thing that really makes me scratch my head, though, is at the end of the commercial where T-Mobile does a little bragging about winning the "highest-ranked wireless customer service performance 7 times in a row" from J.D. Power and Associates. I'm fine with T-Mobile touting this award - in fact, I think it's a well-deserved accolade. The few (pre-blog) times I've had to call the customer service line I've been almost shocked by the friendliness and helpfulness of the staff. So I don't have a problem with promoting the award, it just doesn't really fit in the context of this commercial. This customer service award has nothing to do with call quality, so it seems strange stuck on the end like it is. It's almost like T-Mobile is trying to trick the viewers by talking about call quality and then quickly flashing an award on the screen, leading to the assumption that the award applies to call quality. I smell a bait and switch!

I hope no one out there got tricked by this tomfoolery. If you did, unless you live out West or in the Southeast, you're going to need that excellent customer service to call and complain about all the important conversations you're going to miss.

"I'm getting married to that boy who's a friend of Lindsay's!"
"What?! You're getting married to my boyfriend?!?!"

Because I still think T-Mobile has great customer service that IS worth bragging about, I'm going to give this a lukewarm check.

Management to the Maxx

At the checkout counter of TJ Maxx the other day, I witnessed a conversation between a manager and a young sales associate that should never have taken place at all, much less in front of paying customers. Although I did not hear the entirety of the conversation, I caught the most important part:

Associate: "But... she asked to speak to a manager."

Manager: "Well, I'm out in back with the guy who's trying to fix my computer. I don't have time for this!"

Associate: "Okay, so what should I do when someone asks for a manager?"

Manager (angrily): "Tell her I'm busy!" (then, demonstrating the technique as if speaking to a 5-year-old): "The manager is tied up right now."

Associate (trying it out): "The manager is tied up right now. Huh."

At this point, the manager walked off in a huff and the associate turned and looked straight at me. The horrified look on my face must have made him feel a little embarrassed, because he put his head down and walked away.

Anyone who's ever worked in retail knows how awful managers of these establishments can be at times. But a big part of a retail manager's job is to practice customer diplomacy - make the customer feel important (because she's talking to "a manager") and resolve her problem. This particular manager was not only passing off his duties to a young and inexperienced associate, he was putting that associate in a terrible position. I have no doubt that for the rest of his shift, that associate was completely stressed out, angry at his manager, and - through no fault of his own - making some customers very angry. Check minus for TJ Maxx.

Service that should be copied

I'm sure anyone who works in an office, like me, is plagued by the fear of technology failing at inopportune moments. In my office, our printer is notoriously finicky. This is a major problem for me since I provide all sorts of printed materials to co-workers and customers. So when the printer fails, I kind of panic.

Each time my sweaty palm picks up the phone to call Xerox for service, I get through to a real person in record time (never more than 30 seconds on hold), provide only minor details about the problem I'm experiencing, and am promised a callback from my local technician within an hour. This swift, simple process never fails to calm my nerves. I practically expect the person on the other end of the phone to sense my anxiety and coo in a motherly tone, "There, there. It's going to be okay. We'll make your printer good as new! Now, how about a cookie?"

The amazing thing about that promised callback is that it actually happens. The local technician quickly calls me back to get a few more details about the problem, and schedules a time within the next 24 hours when he can come check it out. He either arrives on schedule or calls me to let me know he'll be late, and he stays until the machine is fixed. If he's not able to fix the problem on the spot, he either returns quickly with a missing part, or tells me exactly what the holdup us, what he's going to do about it, and when he's going to do it.

The only time I was momentarily dissatisfied with Xerox's service is when I thought the technician was playing music on his laptop while he was working (in the middle of the office!!). Turns out, what I heard was hold music - the technician was actually on hold with another specialist, and had turned his speakerphone on so he could do something else while he was waiting. A service technician multitasking?! Sure provides a stark contrast to the laziness of other companies' technicians, as reported, and videotaped by some consumers.

Although I will always harbor a simmering grudge against the temperamental machine itself, I can't help but be impressed with the service Xerox delivers. Check plus for Xerox!

This call is being monitored

From time to time, when my company is mentioned in a TV segment, I try to obtain the clip from VMS, a company that can find the clip for you and provide it in a digital format. It's a pretty handy service but over three years of working with them, I've had spotty customer service and often slow delivery times on time-sensitive projects. But nothing quite like this has ever happened...

A recent episode of a popular television show featured one of our products, so I emailed my contact (for anonymity she doesn't deserve, I'll call her Celia) to request a clip and a high-resolution image of the product. I made sure to specify that I needed a high-resolution image or screenshot, because I wasn't sure if VMS had the capability to do this.

This original email, sent first thing in the morning, went unanswered; I only found out through a phone call I placed to the office later that day that Celia was working on it. When I asked about the feasability of getting a screenshot from the digital clip, Celia confirmed that it shouldn't be a problem because all VMS video clips are high quality. Satisfied, I asked her to please call me when the clip was ready.

First thing Tuesday morning, having not heard back from her, I sent an email checking on the status of this time-sensitive project, which elicited two responses at 10:30 a.m. and 3:20 p.m. Both emails made the misleading promise that the clip should arrive "shortly."

When I finally received the clip 24 hours later, on Wednesday afternoon, neither I nor a freelance graphic designer were able able to obtain a screenshot from the video. This was very frustrating, given that I had specified this need in my original email, and that Celia had assured me it would be possible. I called and left a message with the receptionist for Celia, requesting help getting the screenshot ASAP, but received no call or email back. On Thursday afternoon I again emailed Celia, and received the following response:

“I sent another email to rush the order.
You should have received it by now that's why I'm still in the office. [my emphasis]
You should be receiving it shortly.”

This email was sent at 5:15 p.m. 5:15! Please, don't let me keep you chained to your desk until all hours of the night. 5:15! It's inhuman to work that late! The bold-faced rudeness of this email truly shocked me.

Two more emails sent Friday and Monday received no response. I finally got the screenshot from some manager at VMS who told me quite snippily that Celia had sent it on Thursday, and that it must be in my junk mail folder. Obviously, it wasn't. Plus, if Celia had supposedly sent it, why didn't she respond to my frantic emails to alert me that it was ready? The worst part was that the image I finally did get 1) is terrible quality and 2) arrived too late to be used in a timely fashion, rendering it irrelevant.

Almost immediately, I emailed the manager back, detailing my exchanges (or lack therof) with Celia over the past week, and expressing my extreme disappointment with how this project was handled. That was almost 24 hours ago and I have yet to receive a response.

Now, to be fair: our products aren't on TV too often so we're not one of VMS's biggest accounts. However, I don’t feel that any customer deserves to be treated with so little respect. Not calling a concerned customer back after repeated messages is inexcusable.

I'll also concede that Celia's job is pretty terrible overall: high-stress, demanding customers, lots of mind-numbing video to slog through... But most service-oriented jobs have unpleasant elements like these, which can be handled one of two ways: with a bad attitude, leading to poor performance and increasing stress levels, or with a positive attitude, leading to happy (or at least informed) customers and less stressful situations. You can bet that I will think twice before I call Celia for anything in the future. Check minus for VMS.