In looking for a unique gift to send to a team that had successfully launched a huge technology product
to congratulate them for their win, I was in a bit of a quandary. How do you find something fun,
exciting and special for 24 people who have been locked in a room to implement a product with no sleep
over the last 48 hours? Lunch wasn’t exciting enough; flowers were too traditional and stuffy. What
could I do? It was then I remembered a recent gift I had received and thought Viola! That will be PERFECT
for 24 people, locked away in a hot and sticky room, no sleep, and empty pizza boxes littering the floor.
(If you have ever seen a technology product launch, you will picture the scene perfectly!)
Chocolate Covered Strawberries (from an unnamed online store) would be the perfect gift, a little pick me
up, a little sugar to boost the system and a tasty treat that let them know that someone out there was
rooting for them, cared and knew they needed a boost. I knew exactly where I wanted to order from as it
was the only website I knew of and it was the company whom my friend had used for me. The berries I
received were to die for and the presentation perfect, so I thought “How cool is this!” I was so excited
about this idea that I rummaged around until I found the catalog I had received from the company inside
the gift, picked out what I wanted and went to the web page to order. Easy right?
Not so fast. Although the site was attractive, it was too small and there were navigation issues immediately
apparent. That, my friends, is where my nightmare began! The first problem I encountered was that the
item I had selected from the printed catalog I had received could not be found on the website…not by
search or by category. Apparently the company had printed new catalogs but had not placed the new items
onto their web page. I was frustrated, but wanted to send this gift so badly that I pursued further.
Finally I found a few gifts that met my needs, but it was not easy as I had 24 people to surprise. I
decided on several “bouquets” of strawberries and a personal gift for the lead of the team. Putting the
bouquets in my shopping cart, I encountered problem number 2 - I only had the option to select 0 or 1
bouquets to be sent. Now I ask you, who would order “0” bouquets of strawberries? I needed 2 dozen, but
I couldn’t order 2 bouquets, only none or one. Hmmm. How do I get around this one?
On to problem number 3, I finally decide on 1 bouquet and another item to fulfill the two dozen and start
checking out….uh oh I found that I have to go through 6 very difficult steps that were not user friendly
at all. I had a lot of difficulty getting the ship to address different from the buyer address, I could
not use the back button to change my message card, I lost the entire order and started over twice….it was here that I started pulling my hair out!
An hour into the check out process I gave up, and I am a pretty determined individual. I do not give up
easily prefaced by the hour in checkout to get to this point. Most visitors would have canned the process
in about 5 minutes or the first time they had to start over at the very least.
Do you know what my next step was? Oh yeah! I went searching for another company. Only problem was their
berries didn’t look as good, they didn’t have bouquets, which I really wanted and I just didn’t know the
quality. This gift was important to me to get right as these guys had given up the majority of their
lives for the past 18 months. I talked myself back into going to that other site against better judgment.
I decided I wasn’t going to do the website-go-round again and called the company. I started placing my
order, got about ½ the way through…about 12 minutes worth of ordering and then CLICK! they promptly lost the
call! I must be either a saint or a glutton for punishment, because after dropping several choice words,
I called back. I found they had not saved my order so I had to place the order again! All told the second
call took me exactly 43 minutes and 24 seconds (I looked on my phone when I was done) to go through the
process to order TWO LITTLE ITEMS – 10 Minutes of which I WAS PUT ON HOLD!
Once the order was placed and I was free again, I started getting emails… 4 emails for 2 gifts from the
company. I thought that was a little excessive and none of them gave me the information I needed, no
delivery date, no delivery address, no total amount, so I had to call back and ensure that it was correct
losing my freedom for yet another 20 minutes on the phone. Between all three calls I spent over 70 minutes
of my life on the phone, not including the hour to find workable gifts and the hour to try to place the
order on line, two simple gifts! No sooner than I hung up the phone, I get a 5th email, this time informing
me they had charge my credit card wrongly, but didn’t tell me how much wrongly! I kid you not! The email
just said “so sorry we mis-charged your credit card and we corrected it”. Was it higher? Lower? Do you think
that might matter to the buyer? Wow.
Finally the gift arrived. The berries were perfect as they had been for my gift. But they had reversed
the cards, the main gift was to the team and the smaller one was a personal gift with a personal note for
the lead, which confused the heck out of the team. Unbelievable! The only thing they did right was the
actual gifts. I can only say at this point that at least the experience was not ruined for the team.
I will never order from that store again. I will find someone who can send a specialized gift and make it
easy for me. The only reason this company got my sale to begin with was that the launch had a deadline and
I had made the mistake of waiting too long to order them. I was out of time to continue my search. I knew
that if I wanted them to deliver the day after the successful launch, I had to order them then and I had
no other appealing ideas. They made a sale in spite of themselves, a big one at that, but they lost a
customer. I simply will never return to that store no matter how much as I love their berries, and trust
me, I do love their berries. I would have been a life long patron as I think that is such a neat idea!
I just received a survey from them as I write this (email # 6) concerning my experience… I can’t wait to
fill it out!
How can IOS ensure your company avoids lost customers from your website?
- Consolidation of Contact information and Customer tracking
- Ease of product and service updates, inventory, shipping and more
- Reporting tools, know where your customers stand and what your employees are doing
- High level and easy to use/manage marketing tools
- Website development and assistance
- Special SEO optimization assistance
- Interval Marketing
- Secure and Stable eCommerce/POS tools
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"We have been with Internet Office for 3 years, during this time they have provided excellent service. They are a firm that has helped us market our company and we look forward to our continuing relationship."
Thomas Mannion
Tom Mannion Photography
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