We got an email in the shop last week that made me very sad.
It was an official PayPal notification that someone had filed a dispute of a charge, saying they never received the item ordered. The order had been placed over six months before.
I was sad because this was the first we’d heard of it – the customer never got in touch. If she had, we could have worked with her, tracked the package, replaced the item – provided the good customer service that we pride ourselves on and that our customers can depend on.
Instead, probably because in times of mega-retailers and online sales, people don’t want to deal with trying to navigate endless push-button menus to talk to a real person. They don’t want to have customer service apps that pop up and offer online chats, or a call-back within 24 hours. People want their problems resolved with as little hassle as possible – and in their experience, most retailers can’t, won’t or don’t make it easy.
And we are retailers. With our phone number on every page of our website. And when the phone rings, we answer it. There are two of us here – both owners, both with the primary purpose of keeping our customers, and their dogs, happy. If there’s a problem we not only want to know about it, we want to solve it – quickly and easily. If it’s after hours, we return calls the next day. If we’re helping other customers, we return calls as soon as we’re free.
We’re also consumers. And we’ve had our share of customer service issues dealing with big companies. (We can’t even begin to count the number of hours on hold with the phone company!) We treat our customers the way we want to be treated – the way everyone should be treated – we listen, we try to understand, and we fix it.
If you ever have a question or problem – give us a call. We’re here to help.
