Friday, February 24, 2006

Communication Makes Happy Customers

I have been dealing with a local organization, trying to get a refund for a service that was not performed. I have been very disappointed in the person that I have been in contact with. His communication skills are very lacking. I called and left numerous voice messages, he never returned my calls. If I called the office and happened to catch him in, he would talk to me, but never took the initiative to follow up. I have e-mailed and have finally gotten a response after a few weeks.

I truly believe that I will get my refund, as this is a well known organization and a good one. But, the thoughts that have crossed my mind while this person was not communicating with me has shown me just how important communication is. Communication is especially important when someone's money is involved. When there was no communication, it was easy to think that this man was unconcerned about taking money for a service that I did not receive. How was I to know if he was even telling me the truth about making sure that I got a refund? Had he followed up with me, I would have felt assured that he believed I should have a refund and would see to it that I got one. As it was, I didn't feel like he cared at all. I have considered not being involved with this organization again, as I didn't feel this person was doing his job by not communicating with me. It made me wonder what else he was not doing well and I questioned whether or not I could trust him.

So, what does this tell me? I need to communicate with my customers when they place an order so that they know a real person is handling things and it has not been left up to faceless machines. I need to let them know when their order will ship, make sure I have the personalization correct, and confirm anything else that is appropriate. They are entrusting me with their money, I need to make sure they are kept informed. This seems so simple and we might think that we would never consider not communicating with our customers. But how often do we get so busy that we don't even remember if we have communicated with them? That happens to me! How often do we get interrupted and lose track of what we intended to do. That happens to me! The nice thing about communicating via e-mail is that we can keep copies of our communication. I do that so I not only know that I wrote to them, but what I wrote to them. Now, the next step I am going to take is to make sure that my sent e-mails are in the same folder as the customer's order so that I can easily find that communication.

Communication makes happy customers. Happy customers are what makes my business go. No communication, no happy customers. No happy customers, no business. It's as simple as that.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I couldn't agree more. I have been having a problem with Paradise Galleries not knowing how to communicate unless they think they are getting a sale. To make a long story short, I needed two of their dolls by Christmas. In November, I emailed them to make sure that my two dolls would arrive by Christmas. I made it VERY clear that I needed TWO by Christmas. They told me that the two I had ordered wouldn't be there in time. So I asked them to cancel those dolls and order me two that were in stock and ready to ship. I received one of the dolls, that wasn't supposed to get to me by Christmas, a week before Christmas. I HAD canceled that one. I wasn't even supposed to receive it. I never did get a second doll before Christmas. These dolls were for my two nieces. Needless to say, I had to buy new gifts for them because I couldn't give one a doll and not the other. I emailed Paradise Galleries about my disappoint with that situation. They never emailed me back. After paying that doll off, I emailed them again and told them that I no longer wanted ANY dolls from them. I let them know that negative feedback was just as important to respond to as the compliments they received. I felt as if they didn't care how I got treated by them. I STILL haven't heard from them and that's ok. I WON'T buy a thing from them again.

Anonymous said...

Paradise Galleries has some very serious problems with how they are doing business. I sent them $80 for several dolls and was calling just to see where they were in the shipping process after my check was cashed. A very sarcastic young twit gave me about four separate and unrelated reasons for why they will not ship these already-paid-for dolls, while trying to double my order amount, and the final straw was when the girl said "well it will be thirteen days after the check clears" and I said "it has already cleared, I checked my account" and she said, "maybe it cleared your account but that does not mean we have cashed it" and I said "What??? You DID cash it. MY bank clearly indicates that YOUR bank has received the money" and she said "well, maybe our bank has received the money, but that does not mean we have cashed the check!"

Clearly, I have been talking to a person who does not understand that cash in her hand is not the same thing as "accounts received"!

So, thinking that I would reach an adult (frankly, the person DID sound very young) I called the corporate number.

Paradise Galleries has a menu set up to NOT receive calls to ANY department.

They are mailing brochures out in mass mailings that have been reaching millions of people in Texas in the past month. I knew that I was facing bait-and-switch in the conversation with their customer service and when I started to get tough by pointing out that they have already got my money, they went to full robbery.

I am filing complaints against them at every level I can find, so if anyone who has also been ripped off wants to help, please contact me: 979-836-1899

It is obvious to me that they are deliberately doing a huge amount of consumer fraud because I saw numerous complaints from 2004-2005 in doll sites and consumer sites showing that they were facing a lot of honest back-order problems because of the enthusiastic doll-buying response. The fact that they have set up a professional campaign with all the moves of fraud shows that SOMEONE in that company saw an opportunity to make a fast buck off a whole section of the marketplace.