Declan's Blog

December’s a pretty busy month at our house. Nathan’s (the boy) birthday is on the 5th, Elaine’s (the wife) is on the 16th, then there’s Christmas soon after. Because the wife handles most of the shopping around here, I’m just on the hook for her birthday and Christmas gifts. Yes, it’s a little inconsiderate for her birthday to be so close to Christmas, but I can’t blame her for that. I blame her parents.

Anyway, somewhere near the beginning of December, I normally log on to Amazon, check the wife’s wish list, add a few things, and, bada bing, I’m done. All I need to do is collect boxes as they come in and decide which things I’ll give the wife for her birthday and which I’ll save for Christmas. There’s a whole other story about brow beating Erin (the daughter) into doing the wrapping for me, but I’ll save that, or get her to blog it.

So, I fire off my order on December 3rd, and within a week three big boxes show up addresses to me from Amazon. Now, we’re a Midwest family who transplaned to San Diego. At this time of year, there are boxes coming in every day. Since I outsource the mundane business of mail to the wife, I just had the boxes piled up under my desk, planning to select her birthday booty the evening before the 16th. The wife is a crossword freak and had added:

“Excalibur The NY Times Deluxe Touch Screen Crossword Puzzle”
Excalibur Electronics; Video Game

to her Wish List. I ordered that, and, since I wanted to look like I put SOME effort into the process, I added:

“Wordplay”
Chris Astoyan; DVD

a (very entertaining! who knew?!?) movie about crossword freaks. I imagined her delight upon opening TWO birthday presents, ONE of them a non-Wish List SURPRISE, and ANOTHER that’s also on-theme! (And not just a Starbucks card. “Here, you LIKE coffee. Right?”)

So, the evening of the 15th comes and I go hide in my office and pop open the three big boxes, in search of the two crossword related items. Three boxes. Three items. WHAT? There were eleven items in total that I’d ordered for the two occasions. Oh man, I’m screwed… Thankfully, the crossword video game was one of the three, but my masterwork, the accompanying DVD, was not here. In fact, the only items that had shown up were the ones Amazon offered through third parties. All of the other stuff, DVDs and books, Amazon stock and trade, were missing. I quickly looked through my email for the Amazon Order confirmation and was stunned to finally notice this:

Shipping estimate for these items: January 5, 2007 – January 19, 2007
Delivery estimate: January 9, 2007 – January 24, 2007

[LIST OF ALL THE STUFF THAT WAS MISSING]

I was wrestling with a lot of emotions at this point. Shock over not seeing what I expected. Disappointment that I wouldn’t be able to give what I thought I would. (“Look, movie!” “Good boy!”) Shame over screwing up my ONE real gift buying event window of the year. Stupidity for not checking the boxes sooner or actually reading the Amazon mail. Then finally anger that I’d even have to consider that Amazon would take this long.

How was I going to deal with all this? Well, it’s the 2000s and I’m a Networking Professional, so I did what most of us do in this case. I wrote an email. Well, actually I filled out a form on Amazon’s site, but it’s pretty much the same thing:

Subject: Other Assistance
—————
12/16/06 08:16:00
Your Name:Declan Fleming

Comments:

Hi – I did all my shopping on December 3rd, using Amazon.com order number: XXX-XXXXXXX-XXXXXXX

More than half of my stuff won’t arrive until after Christmas!!! Is this a feature of Super Saver Shipping? I get everything done by the beginning of December, and Amazon – the ICON of effeciency – can’t ship for over a month on the items that are listed as stocked by you?!? I have received the 3 items from other vendors that I bought through you, it is just the stuff you stock that is being delayed.

I did not notice the ridiculous ship date until today when I thought to look. Who would think that Amazon would take so long? AND, there’s no way I can see to expedite my order. You’ve got me over a barrel with the timing of the shipment, and I can’t even dig my way out.

Wow, I’m so unhappy! Look how long I’ve been an Amazon customer. I’d NEVER dream that shipping books and DVDs ordered on December 3rd would take a month from you.

How are we going to fix this and save Christmas?
Declan Fleming
—————

SNAP! That’ll show them! Can you see my Customer Service background come out as I tear Amazon a new one? Through a feedback form. I bet this will be escalated all the way to Bezos! “A customer didn’t read his order confirmation mail and now he’s pissed! Let’s get ON this!” Man, I’m screwed.

The next morning the daughter and I get up early and head out to get the wife some flowers and coffee. In line at the Starbucks, the daughter hits me up for a $25 gift card so she has a present for her mom. (Where did she learn to put things off like this?!?) “She LIKES coffee. Right?”

We get home and give the wife her stuff and I brace her for a Christmas of printouts of gift orders rather than actual gifts. But it will make a very festive January, right? I hang my head in shame…

But wait! What’s this? Email from Amazon:

Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com.

I’ve checked your order and can confirm that we are currently
preparing it for shipment.

It appears that we will be able to ship your package earlier than
the date estimated on our web site, and we expect your order will
arrive within 5-7 business days of the ship date.

We will send you an e-mail at the time of shipment.

You can also check the status of your order, including estimated
dates of shipment and delivery, by clicking the Your Account link at
the top of most pages of our store or by following this link:

http://www.amazon.com/your-account

Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com. We hope you enjoy your order.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
If not, click here:

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept
incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help
section of our web site.

Best regards,

Ramji L.
Amazon.com Customer Service
Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com.

—————-

This doesn’t exactly answer my questions, and it smells like an auto-responder, but there’s some positive language in there. “earlier than the date estimated on our web site” Hmm, vague… I want some more details. I hit their Help section and find a link that sets up a phone call. Let’s see if I get anywhere talking to them. I type in my phone number, click the button, and my phone rings immediately. (Remind me to write a rant about a house that has 7 wireless phone but not one in its base…)

“Hi, this is Juan from Amazon, how can I help?”

“Hi Juan, how are we gonna save Christmas?”

Juan was very good. He reviewed my account and agreed that the long ship date didn’t seem right. He said he’d dig into this and get back to me the next day:

From: Amazon
We are very sorry for the delay in completing your order. I have
reviewed your account and can see that this experience has been far
less than positive.

We strive for convenience and efficiency at Amazon.com, but in this
instance we have fallen short of our goal. I’m truly sorry that your
impression of doing business with Amazon.com has been so negative.

Unfortunately, your order is still being delayed and we are currently
unable to ship your order. We are doing everything possible to correct
this problem. However, we have no new information at this time
regarding the status of your order. You will be notified as soon as
there is an update.

As this was not what you expected when you placed your order, we would
understand if you’d prefer to cancel it. You may cancel unshipped
items through the “Your Account” link at the top of our home page by
clicking the link that says “Cancel items or orders.” After signing
in with your e-mail address and password, you will be able to view
your order history and cancel your order for any item that has not yet
entered the shipping process.

Otherwise, when your order is shipped, we will send you an e-mail to
confirm the shipment.

Again, I would like to apologize for the inconvenience you have
experienced and express our gratitude for the patience you’ve
displayed thus far. I am going to apply a promotional gift certificate
for the amount of shipping which is $16.16.

Please be assured that this is not a typical Amazon experience and
in no way did we intend for this to happen. I hope that you will give
us another opportunity to prove the quality of our service to you.

Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
If not, click here:

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept
incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section
of our web site.

Best regards,

Juan
Amazon.com Customer Service
———————-

Well, hmm… The letter STARTS nice. “We suck, we’re sorry.” That goes a long way towards making me feel good about Amazon. But their remedy is not satisfactory. Just cancel, take our $16, and the problem goes away… Well, no, I’ve got eight items for Christmas that I need, and I am NOT going to start my Christmas shopping on 12/18.

I did NOT want to cancel this order, and in fact, the Cancel option was not available because it was in the process of shipping. I decide to get a little pissy and open a small can of whoopass on the web form:

Date: Tue Dec 19 07:12:44 UTC 2006
Subject: Feedback to Amazon.com
To: “int-form-feedback__34erdf@amazon.com” int-form-feedback__34erdf@amazon.com
From: declan@declan.net

CUSTOMER: Declan Fleming
COMMENTS: I appreciate the note, but it in no way addresses the problem of getting me my stuff before Xmas.

“Unfortunately, your order is still being delayed and we are currently
unable to ship your order. We are doing everything possible to correct this problem. However, we have no new information at this time regarding the status of your order. You will be notified as soon as there is an update.”

This tells me nothing other than you don’t know what’s going on. Please figure out what is going on and ship my order now. I’ve already missed my wife’s birthday (12/16). Please don’t mess up Xmas too.

Declan
———————–

So there! I ALMOST left off “Please.” I’m a hardass. I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I tried to push all the Customer Service buttons I could think of to force a response. Here’s what I got:

Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com.

First, please allow me to apologize for the inconvenience you have
faced. It is certainly not our intention to cause you any
frustration, and I am sorry that this has been the case.

We are very sorry for the delay in completing your order. I have
reviewed your account and found that your order item has entered the
shipping process on December 13, 2006 but not yet shipped till now
and can see that this experience has been far less than positive.

We strive for convenience and efficiency at Amazon.com, but in this
instance we have fallen short of our goal, and I am truly sorry.

Unfortunately, I can’t cancel your order items, because it’s already
in the shipping process.

In looking into this situation further, I see that the shipment of
your order is still being delayed by a system error. This same
error prevents us from being able to cancel the order.

We have been in contact with our technical specialists, and they are
currently doing everything in their power to correct this problem
and ship your order as soon as possible.

However, we have no new information at this time regarding the
status of your order; you will be notified as soon as there is an
update.

Due to the circumstances surrounding your order, I have made a one-
time exception to our standard policy.

You may place a new order for the same items with Two-Day shipping
and the write back to us using this link so that we will waive the
shipping cost :

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html

Please copy and paste the URL into your web browser to reach the
specific page.

You may refuse this shipment when it arrives from this order.
Refusing the shipment allows you to return it without having to pay
for return shipping. If the package is delivered by mail and you
are not present when it is delivered, you may write “Refused–return
to sender” on the box and leave it for your postal carrier to pick
up.

When we receive this refused and returned order, our return center
would create full refund for the shipment.

Again, I would like to apologize for the inconvenience you have
experienced and express our gratitude for the patience you’ve
displayed thus far.

Please be assured that this is not a typical Amazon.com experience
and in no way did we intend for this to happen. I hope that you
will give us another opportunity to prove the quality of our service
to you.

Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
If not, click here:

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept
incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help
section of our web site.

Best regards,

Vijay .E
Amazon.com Customer Service
http://www.amazon.com
—————

Wow! Let’s analyze this…

1) Sorry for sucking.

2) Sorry again for the suckiness.

3) “Unfortunately, I can’t cancel your order items, because it’s already in the shipping process.” Um, yeah, you figured that out too, eh?

4) “In looking into this situation further, I see that the shipment of your order is still being delayed by a system error.” Translation: “Our IT has screwed you.” I run an IT group and I felt SUCH sympathy for this poor Customer Service guy at this point. I can’t tell you how many time I’ve had to tell my customers that we have a “system error.” Tough crap, I still want my stuff. (HEY! NO using this against me, customers! :)) I swear to God, if there wasn’t so much context to this statement, I’d make it into a T shirt. System error… ha! Sorry, where was I?

5) “This same error prevents us from being able to cancel the order.” Translation: “Our IT group has screwed US.”

6) “We have been in contact with our technical specialists, and they are
currently doing everything in their power to correct this problem and ship your order as soon as possible. However, we have no new information at this time regarding the status of your order; you will be notified as soon as there is an update.” Translation: “IT are all in a meeting. And not answering their cell phones. Damn IT.”

7) “Due to the circumstances surrounding your order, I have made a one-time exception to our standard policy.” Translation: “Your whining is messing up our call completion stats.”

8) WHAT??? Let me get this straight… Yer telling me to ignore everything so far, REORDER all my stuff with refundable (thanks.) 2 day shipping, thereby doubling the charges on my credit card, then refusing reception on the original order when it actually arrives, sometime around Easter? Let me check with my Shipping Department… The wife says to go pound sand. Oooo! Now you made HER mad! You wouldn’t like her when she’s mad…

9) Again, we suck, we sorry. Thanks for being a buddy.

10) Oh yeah, we usually don’t suck. Can we borrow your van? We promise not to run it off a bridge.

I spend the rest of the day reeling and composing a blog post in my mind. I don’t actually WRITE the post because I believe in the magic of Christmas and that the stuff will actually show up. And I thought it would be way too long to put in a blog. I think I have proven that fact. Instead I tell all my friends and they laugh at me. Gotta love my friends.

Well, Santa showed all of my friends up. At 7pm of the same day I got the email above, this arrives:

Greetings from Amazon.com.

We thought you’d like to know that we shipped your items, and that this
completes your order.

[LIST OF ALL THE STUFF THAT WAS MISSING]
————–

Everything shows up a few days before Christmas, and there is much rejoicing.

So, what have we learned?

1) Amazon comes through, eventually.

2) Amazon has some pretty creative excuse writers.

3) Always blame IT. Damn IT. System error! It cracks me UP!

4) Always read order confirmation emails. Even from Amazon. A MONTH for DVDs and BOOKS? Who’da thunk it?

5) This is way too long a story to go into a blog.

6) The wife loves the crossword video game. I haven’t seen her since her birthday.

7) The daughter’s gonna kill me for telling everyone I bought the Starbucks card. Thankfully, she never reads my blog.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS