Customers. What More Can We Say.
Why Do Retailers Sometimes Hate Their Customers?
Google Results for "Customers Suck"
This document includes and represents our opinions.
Customers are wonderful, aren't they?
They're kind, intelligent, thoughtful, smart, patient----
Well aren't they?
Let's examine an example and then form an opinion:
On Friday, January 11, 2008, we received the following order:
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Invoice No.: 6423 Order No.: 44501000 Date: 01/11/2008
SHIP TO:
Andrea Stern
500 Taberna Way
New Bern, NC 28562
United States
252-638-3311
alevinsonfilm@----------BILL TO:
Andrea Stern
500 Taberna Way
New Bern, NC 28562
United States
252-638-33--
alevinsonfilm@----------Payment Method: Credit Card
Credit Card Type: MasterCard
Account Number: ************----ORDER DETAILS:
Item: 22x42 inches Giant Checks on heavy poster paper FCH-1
Quantity: 1
Description: 22x42 inches Giant Checks on heavy poster paper (FCH-1)
Laminate it (makes a MUCH nicer product): No lamination
Price (each): $32.95
Item Total: $32.95
_________________________________________Subtotal: $32.95
Shipping (3-7 Day Average): +$7.90
Grand Total: $40.85
_________________________________________Comments:
CUSTOMER TRACKING:
IP Address: 71.52.241.93
Purchased From: http://www.trixiepixgraphics.comPAYMENT PROCESSOR RESPONSE FIELDS:
Approval Code: 025---
AVS Result Code: Y
Transaction ID: 169115----
Card Code Response Code: M-------------------------------------------------------------
Simple. We process Giant Check orders all day without a glitch or a hitch.
We set up a template under this customer's name for the product she ordered. We went online and created her shipping label and paid for it. Then we settled in to finish creating her product.
Oops--- When we began to transfer her order data into her custom template, we discovered that there WAS no order data. She had left the personalization for completely blank. This happens once or twice a year, and is quite irritating because we then have to close out the customer's order and email them to inquire why they didn't include any data or images for their order. To order a personalized Giant Check and then not personalize it is, well, weird. But occasionally we get a customer who does this. Who can speculate as to their lack of cerebral function.
So we emailed this customer as follows, thinking, perhaps, they had gotten confused and ordered one product when they really meant to order a different product. Here's our email to Ms. Andrea Stern:
Fri 1/11/2008 3:15 PM
'Andrea Stern'We've set up a template for your giant check order but when we went to process and print we realized that you had not uploaded your giant check image. The type of giant check you selected requires that you upload the entire image of the whole check. You did not upload ANY image. It appears as though you may have meant to order a regular giant check with is already set up for you, and you need only supply the information to fill in the blanks. Assuming that's the case, please fill out the form at the following link and click submit. However, do NOT continue through to the payment process, as you've already paid. Just complete the form, submit it, and we'll take it from there. Here's the link:
http://www.trixiepixgraphics.com/giant_checks/FCH-8_giant_checks.html
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www dot FakeNewspapers dot Com
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This email may contain confidential information and/or copyright material. This email is intended for the use of the addressee only. Any unauthorized use may be unlawful. If you receive this email by mistake, please advise the sender immediately by using the reply facility in your email software. You should be aware that the contents of this email may be monitored to ensure compliance with the TrixiePixGraphics user policy. Replies to this email, and including all email sent to or through the TrixiePixGraphics.com and FakeNewspapers.com domains, are not considered private and may be subject to public dissemination.------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pretty straightforward, right? No big deal. We waited for Ms. Stern's timely reply so we could finish her order and get it out as quickly as possible.
On 1-12-08 we received her reply, and it's a doozy. In well over ten years we've never seen anything like this:
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I tried for 6 hours to order a fake newspaper for a Movie I am shooting on Monday. Your websight doesn't take the information and let you continue shopping. I tried 5 different times. I don't need the check. It was the only way I could think of to see if I could reach you. There's no telling how much business you are losing. Please cancel my credit card order.
Regards,Dr. Andrea Levinson Stern
Writer, Executive Producer
Death, Taxes ... and Chocolate!
500 Taberna Way
New Bern, NC 28562alevinsonfilm@yahoo.com
www.deathtaxesandchocolate.com252-638-3311 H
713-376-6570 C--------------------------------------------------------
We had to read it a couple of times to fully understand the stunt she was pulling.
So let's take this communication line by line, bitch by bitch and see if it holds water.
(1) We have received NO (zero, zip, nada) fake newspaper forms under this woman's name. She claims she spent six (6) hours (five attempts) trying to order one. The first step in placing any fake newspaper order is to complete the personalization form on the product page. We received properly completed forms all day on 1-11 and all day on 1-12. No customer complained of not being able to submit a form. We tested the form ourselves -- of course the form works perfectly, as it has for a decade. So what happened to Ms. Stern's form? We suggest that she simply did not submit one, or even try to do so. Even our server logs have no records of any form submission attempt by anyone with this or a similar name.
(2) "Your website doesn't take the information and let you continue shopping." In point of FACT, it does EXACTLY that. Let's see--- how WOULD one go about submitting one's information and then continue shopping? Oh, WE KNOW! WE KNOW! (hands in their air). We would click the button shown below, which is presented after submitting one's information, which says, mysteriously, "CONTINUE SHOPPING"! What an utterly novel concept!
Why couldn't Stern do this? We have no clue. In order to complete the order that she did submit, she HAD to click one or the other of these two buttons. There's no way to get to the shopping cart without going through this page featuring the buttons you see above.
Alternately, a customer could really make a statement, go out on a limb, and click the button shown below which says, "BACK TO SHOPPING"! (Oh my God!).
And still further, at any point in the checkout flow, a customer may also click (get ready for this one) "GO BACK"!
Ahhhh, it's nearly orgasmic!
So, yes, documentably and demonstrably the customer has a veritable PLETHORA of choices if they choose to drop an item in their cart and then CONTINUE SHOPPING. Virtually all shopping carts in use by all vendors all around the world work just like this. Customers make use of these options ALL DAY LONG. It ain't bloody Rocket Science. Why couldn't our Ms. Stern make use of any of these choices? After all, here's her own quote: "I tried 5 different times". The reader will have to decide for themselves why five tries couldn't get this done.
Ms. Stern's next line is a stunner:
"I don't need the check. It was the only way I could think of to see if I could reach you. There's no telling how much business you are losing. Please cancel my credit card order."
Let's see now. Ms. Sterns is stating that she never wished to order a Giant Check in the first place, but that she only did so in order to contact us and tell us......what? Ms. Stern, in our view, fraudulently used her credit card in order to wilfully cause us to expend time and energy on her behalf because she simply "wanted to contact us". But we have to wonder why Ms. Sterns couldn't muster the handful of brain cells it would have required to utilize any of the contact methods below, all of which appear on every single page of our website, and all of which are used every single day by other customers. Why? Why was this concept of clicking "Ask a Question" or "Contact Us" utterly and wholly beyond Ms. Stern's understanding? We assume that she has a job, and that she travels to and from work every day, apparently successfully. During those trips she must read signs, react to traffic, operate her vehicle. She MUST be capable of finding her way home at night, yes? Yet instead of clicking on any of the contact links shown below, Ms. Sterns says, in writing, that she was forced to place an unwanted order for a product she did not want and had no intention of receiving or paying for, and that that was the ONLY way she could think of to contact us. Staggering. Absolutely mind boggling.
And what about Andrea's assertion that she was placing an order for a newspaper on Friday (or was it Saturday?) which she needed IN HAND for a movie shoot on Monday-- Her newspaper wouldn't even have been printed until Monday! It would have gone out Tuesday for a Wednesday delivery if she had paid for RUSH shipping. Even then, when we ship using so-called "overnight" methods, the item often doesn't arrive overnight as the carrier promises, but takes two days (in the case of UPS it might take 30 days -- documented). So how in God's name did Andrea Stern think she was going to get her order anyway? By magical teleportation? We suggest her entire story is bullshit. Why on Earth would someone go to such incredible lengths to annoy a business with subterfuge and nonsense? We have no notion, except to admit that there are kooks out there in the world and sometimes we snag them. Businesses just end up shaking their heads over nonsense like this, and usually eating the expense of such a charade -- which makes them crankier and crankier as the years go by, and also raises the price of every single product YOU, the sane and responsible customer, must pay.
Ms. Andrea Sterns then has the unmitigated audacity to tell us to cancel her order -- the one we had already set up for her, and the one we had already prepared a shipping label for and a box to ship it in -- and refund her money.
Ms. Stern can go suck on a dry stick.
We view Ms. Stern's actions as nothing short of fraud and harassment. She engaged in a legal transaction to purchase a product which she now admits, in writing, that she never wanted at all. She ignored all normal means of contacting us in order to perpetrate this ludicrous ploy which was designed for one reason only: To harass and annoy us and cost us time and work. This is perhaps THE dumbest stunt we have ever seen any customer pull in our ten years of active business at this endeavor and more than 15 years of part time business before that. This one truly takes the cake. It really does.
Stern concludes with: "There's no telling how much business you are losing."
Answer: NONE.
Because 99.99999907% of the population of this country have more than two brain cells to rub together, and almost all of them can READ. They can read things like "CONTINUE SHOPPING" and "ASK A QUESTION" and "BACK TO SHOPPING". They can read things like "ADD TO CART" and "GO BACK". And Ms. Stern....can not.Customers wonder why retailers get cranky, pissed off, irritable, disgusted, short-temptered, suspicious---- THIS IS WHY! Granted, this is one of the dumbest stunts we've ever seen, but we've experienced many that run a close second to this. Stern states that there's no telling how much business we're losing. Honestly, if any customer is as dumb, as obtuse, as stupid, or as irritating as Ms. Andrea Sterns -- Hell, if a customer is one fifth that G---damned ignorant, we don't WANT them as customers, nor does anyone else.
Our final communication with Ms. Andrea Stern:
Stern:
We direct you to the web page located at the following URL:
http://www.truth-or-consequences.com/rude_customers/rude_customers-12/andrea_levinson_stern_.html
We have answered your email there at length.
Re your order, trust us when we say it has been cancelled, as has any right you might ever think you have to order from us again, to bother us again, to fraudulently use your credit card to harass us again, or to even view our website. We are refunding 50% of your money. The half we keep will pay for our time in this stupid, sorted affair. We will immediately notify your credit card company to advise them that you are wilfully placing orders for items you have no intention of receiving or paying for, for the express purpose of costing the merchant money. You have admitted this in writing. We hope your credit card company prosecutes you. We may attempt that ourselves. You will never, ever contact us again, directly, indirectly, by smoke signal, telepathy, carrier pigeon, email, snail-mail, telephone, or via our website or through a friend, relative or other person with the exception of your attorney -- and we truly hope you contact him or her without delay. If we hear from you in ANY way, ever, for any reason, we will immediately file a criminal complaint against you of harassment. You are quite a piece of work.
www.TrixiePixGraphics.com
1-12-08So, to answer the reader's question (Why Do Retailers Sometimes Hate Their Customers?)....
THIS IS WHY!
Copyright (c) 2008 TrixiePixGraphics
