crappy customer service rant

Ken turned 35 on Tuesday, and he enjoyed his requested "day of nothing". We had lots of food and cake at his parent's house on Monday, and he got some cool presents. I usually try to give him gifts that he wants, but won't buy for himself, and I had one particular item in mind that fit that description.

I went searching online for a certain brand of shirt that he likes, since I can't easily walk into a store and find this brand in the type of style and color he wants. These shirts are also kind of pricey, so I wanted to find a good deal. I ended up placing an online order for a shirt with a company I have never heard of, but they were in the U.S., so I was hoping to get the shirt in a timely manner. I Placed the order a little over two weeks before Ken's B-Day, so it really should have been no problem, right? Ha.
Perhaps I expect too much. But I found a reply to an email I sent to this company to be the single rudest response in the history of customer service. I waited about a week after a placed the order to write them, since I had not received any kind of indication that they had shipped my order. My email said this:


"Hello,
I was wondering if my order has been shipped yet? It was placed on August 20th, and the order number is 29722. I'm hoping to receive this before next weekend, as it is a present for my husband's birthday.
Thanks!"


A perfectly reasonable question, right? I mean, Ken and I receive emails like this every day, since we run a mail order business. I received a reply several days later that was an attached form letter. Here are some of my favorite excerpts from the form letter:


"You're getting this "form letter" because you asked the question I get a MILLION times a day "I was just wondering, where's my stuff?".
These are the most likely answers as well as questions I need to help you:
1) Did you order a shirt, sweatshirt, canvas bag or something that requires “printing”? If so, please RE-READ your e-mail reply from us. In it, it says that all shirts may take up to three weeks for us to GET as most are made to order. It also says this right on the website under the t-shirt pages."

Keep in mind, the shirt I ordered did not require printing of any sort. Now back to the form letter.



"...please keep in mind this is NOT Amazon.com. We're just four people doing the best we can so unless it's been a while (4 weeks at least) PLEASE BE PATIENT. Answering these "Just wondering...." e-mails is time we could be using wrapping up YOURS and others orders."

So let me get this straight. Unless it's been at least four weeks since I placed my order, then I'm an impatient asshole for inquiring about it? Seriously? Four fucking weeks? And I find the Amazon reference and the "just wondering..." email parts to be particularly patronizing.


And okay. Maybe I really do expect a lot in a customer service situation. But really. Ken and I run our online business as well as our retail store by ourselves. Two people. And we still manage to get out every single order within 24 hours, unless there is a problem in which case we let our customers know about it immediately. We also answer every email with a personal response... call us crazy.
The good news is that the shirt arrived two days before his birthday, about 12 days after I placed the order. That time frame is okay with me considering it was shipping from the west coast, but the email form letter was just too much! I can't imagine emailing something like that to our customers!
But all is well now. Ken liked his shirt and also his trip to a spa for a massage.

...and I promise to cook something this weekend. I'm not sure what yet! No desserts though, we're all caked out.