Sometimes patience is NOT a virtue. Since I can’t sleep at the moment I thought I’d go on a little corporate bitch-fest.
Knowing I love t-shirts, one of my twitter buddies referred me to a site that specializes in cheap but unique shirts. Sounds good right? I hopped over to 6dollarshirts.com and true enough they offered a great selection of not so common t-shirts at a great price. [1]Actually, the shirts were so cheap, the shipping was more than the shirt.
I found a shirt I liked and placed my order. Got a confirmation the very next day that my ‘order had been processed’. I’m like, ‘damn skippy, that was fast’. I then proceed to wait, wait, and then wait some more. After 2 weeks I sent a short request for an update and got this vague reply.
Hello,
6DollarShirts customer service is extremely backed up right now due to staffing issues. We are working our hardest to answer emails as quickly as possible. In the meantime, we ask for your patience until we get this resolved. We are printing shirts overtime right now and orders are shipping a few days behind schedule . If the matter is extremely urgent, please call us at 352.371.6536.
Thank You,
6DollarShirts.com
My first annoyance, this was clearly a canned response which had no real connection to my order/request. Then I remembered my order was supposed to have already been processed. Now, not only am I feeling annoyed but lied to as well. Needless to say, I was not pleased. Needing to vent, I made a quick bitchy-blurb on twitter. To my surprise, I got a follow up comment thru twitter from the company. I’m thinking, ‘ok, maybe they really are trying’. Lo and behold I find an email in my inbox the very next morning with confirmation of shipment (again).
At this point, I’m somewhat mollified thinking my order is on the way. Sadly, I go on to wait, wait, and wait some more, yet again. I send a 2nd follow up email, to which I got no reply at all. Finally today, a full month to the day, I got my order in the mail. To be fair, the shirt (left) was designed as promised and was overall the product I ordered.
Any excitement I had over getting the item was completely overshadowed by the underhanded business practice used to get a quick sale on a product. Not only that, they made no real attempt to help me as a customer, no apology, no expedited shipping, nothing. No surprise, I doubt I’ll ever spend money on said company again, regardless of how cheap their shirts are.
On a related note, it seems this practice is becoming more and more common every day. There is virtually no concern for real customer service anymore at all. Basically, greed has taken over and everything else is secondary to most companies.
Here’s a clue to all you up and coming ‘entrepreneurs’ out there. People actually don’t mind paying a reasonable price for quality AND service. I’d even argue most people would be willing to pay a little more for exceptional levels of both.
Lesson learned. I guess you really do get what you pay for.
/rant
References
| ↑1 | Actually, the shirts were so cheap, the shipping was more than the shirt. |
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hmmm, is it really "corporate bitching" if they're a small company? my guess is it's two guys in a garage 😉 actually, their area code and prefix are for my (small, college) hometown, so it's probably a bunch of college students doing it for beer money lol
But at least you GOT the merchandise. And it was only 6 bucks, right?
Heck, your mochalatteccinos probably cost more than that
Hello,
I wanted to apologize on behalf of 6DollarShirts.com. I am the employee that contacted you through twitter, and unfortunately did not hear back from you through the site — to which I believed the problem was resolved. Understandably, from your end, you thought the same as well with the confirmation email you received the next day. I do however, apologize for the poor (and non-existent) responses you received from our customer service department, there is no excuse for that.
We are a small business located in Gainesville, Florida and as the email stated we were having staffing problems to which we have now taken care of. Shortly we will be caught up on all orders.
As odd as it sounds, I do thank you for posting this blog to make us aware of our customers' frustrations during this past month.
Please feel free to contact me through twitter or my email for any reason.
Beth
6DollarShirts.com
@Beth ~ Alright, you get some leniency for actually taking the time to reply to my little hissy fit. Thanks for the follow-up!
352 area code? That's Gainesville, FL. The college town of UF. It must be a small company then.
When they say you're order was processed, they mean – we have charged your credit card and gotten OUR payment.
It has nothing to do w/you getting what you need.
Silly silly Mobes.
Interesting what a little internet/blog bitching can accomplish.