Where’s my *@#%&^% parcel!

Yesterday, a customer of one of our web sites e-mailed us with this:

“Where’s my %^#$^%** parcel. It’s been 4 days and I haven’t received it yet.”

From our experience we know that the parcels take, at most, 10 days to arrive to the USA (where this guy was from). All through the web site it says “Please allow 10 working days for delivery.”

Whenever someone orders they receive the following

* An instant e-mail thanking them for their order and advising them the delivery time is 10 working days.

* An e-mail (within 12 hours on average) confirming that the parcel has been packed and posted, again confirming a delivery date of 10 working days.

In these days of the customer is always right, what would you do when a customer e-mails you with “Where’s my %^#$^%* parcel?” Here’s how we handled it, and I’ll give our thinking at the end.

Our e-mail response was:

“We find your e-mail offensive and will not be responding to any contact from you from now.”

My thinking is this.

We run a quality, positive business based on honesty, integrity and decency. We don’t want to deal with offensive people who have no respect for us. Sure, it might cost us a sale or two- (2), but we want to deal with decent people. The long-term value of that to our business is immeasurable.

Is the customer always right? Of course not! Treat your customers well, with goodness at the heart of your dealing. That’s the right thing to do.