It can get lonely and isolated on the Internet when I run into a problem with a business, and can’t get help.
Yesterday, I spent a couple hours filling out a long, multi-page form to sign BoomanTribune up for a major affiilate program. When I got the confirmation e-mail and password, I logged in, and got this message, “We are unable to validate one or more pieces of your profile information at this time.” But the message didn’t explain which information couldn’t be validated. Luckily, I spotted a “Support” link, so clicked and filled out the form, asking how I could answer their questions. When I clicked “Send,” I got this message: “404 Not Found — The requested URL /fs/ was not found on this server.” So, I found an e-mail address, and sent them a couple messages, but have not received a reply.
In the meantime yesterday, after I recalled seeing a promo for an author interview on BookTV (C-Span2) that’ll be on this coming weekend. I looked up the book at Powell’s. Powell’s has the book, but it’s at full price. So, I sent an e-mail to Emily in the Partners Program at Powell’s. I told Emily that the book will be featured this weekend on C-Span2, that I’d like to advertise the book, but wondered if Powell’s would be discounting the book. This afternoon, I received this reply from Emily:
Ask and ye shall receive 🙂 (at least whenever possible). 30% off starting tomorrow, online only. Hopefully we can work together to drive some sales!
Please let me know if you have any questions, or if I can help with anything else.
Emily
I’m not surprised. Emily is unfailingly responsive to every question I have. When my e-mail program crashed a couple weeks ago, and I lost all the e-mails chock full of info that she’d sent me before, she again sent me the info I needed. Emily can’t always say yes, but she always is cheery, polite, and clear and helpful in her tips and instructions.
I think it’s called Customer Service. C.S. for short.
Emily has C.S. down. And so does her company. As opposed to another company I dealt with yesterday.
Now that I’ve made her spend time getting me a deal on the book I hope we sell a couple of them!
Oh! The book! How could I forget. (Sometimes C.S. stands for common sense.)
Here’s the jacket, the title, the author, and a couple blurbs.
The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor–And Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car!
by Tim Harford (who’s a columnist for the Financial Times)
The reason I got excited was that the promo on C-Span says the book exposes:
“… how companies from Amazon.com to Whole Foods to Starbucks have gouged consumers through guerrilla pricing techniques and explains the high rents in London (it has more to do with agriculture than one might think).”
Now that made my ears perk up. On the rare occasions that my daughter and I get to Seattle, we love to go to Whole Foods. But we can never figure out why we’re $80 lighter after buying not very much at all, it seems. I want this author to tell me how Whole Foods does that.
One customer review reads: “If you read only one pop economics book this year, The Undercover Economist should be it. Harford, a columnist for the Financial Times among other distinctions, has written a book that could almost serve as a textbook for an Economics 101 course. But it’s emphatically not dry or dull. Instead, what Harford has done is convey the excitement, the power, and the often counter-intuitive results of economic thought. In so doing, he has written more or less the economic equivalent to The Selfish Gene. ”
Sounds worthwhile, and fun too. Check it out. For Emily (and me). And I hope that the “undercover economist” doesn’t look at price only. Service counts for a lot too.
Have you had some good — or horrible — customer service experiences on the ‘net?
started doing more online shopping, and haven’t run into any problems (yet). In fact, had a great experience with Amazon of all people. I’d been searching for a particular CD that I remembered from several years ago. I found it at Amazon, and put through the order. Got an email that the item was backordered; not in that much of a hurry, so I didn’t worry about it. To my surprise, it arrived, not just one CD, but THREE! It had become part of a three CD set, which they sent me at no extra charge so I ended up with three CDs for the price of one. And one of the other CDs was one I also remembered the music from but did not remember the artist or title. The third turned out to be delightful as well. (The music for all three could be classified as “Christian New Age”, if that’s not a complete oxymoron; I have extremely eclectic music tastes.)
As a former customer service personage, I definitely value good service…and if the service is lacking I have no hesitation about filing a complaint. If you continue to get the run-around from the company you’re trying to contact, you should post the information as a caveat emptor to the rest of us. (Although I hope that the “404 Error” might have been a case of a computer glitch that happened over the holiday weekend and that has not been tackled by the IT gang…make sure you mention that in your emails…)
My daughter’s had good luck with Amazon too .. but yesterday, while I was doing research on potential advertisers for the site, I went to BuyBlue.org. Some potential advertisers such as Sharper Image and Netflix are blue. Amazon is not — in fact, it has a BIG red donkey, which means it’s redder than most. Sigh. (And I can’t figure that out … Seattle-based company with a lot of blue employees and customers. Odd, and troubling because they’re probably GOP for selfish reasons.)
Thanks, Susan 🙂 you’ve done Powell’s and Emily a service (because they’ve done us one it seems grins) because this book looks cool. I think i WILL buy it .. i juts hope 26 dollars is it’s BEFORE 30 percent off price.
Yes! Emily said the price reduction will begin tomorrow! Thank you so much … after I got Emily’s e-mail, I thought, “Oh damn, what if we don’t sell any after she’s gone to this trouble.” Oh well. Nothing ventured…
And I’m excited about the BookTV.org show this weekend. (I love BookTV … it’s a lot more interesting than most of the fare, except when they have to show Ann Coulter or Bill O’Reilly — which, in fairness, they do have to do. Not all the authors are good speakers though. I hope this fellow is.)
I’ll get it this Friday 🙂 hopefully the sale willlast as long until I get paid!
This is a very amusing article from Fast Company:
Any idea when the discount will be applied? I went to Powell’s to buy a copy, but It’s listed at full price right now.
Never mind. Helps to actually read the comments rather than quickly skim!
<hangs head in shame>
Good customer service is a dying art and it’s a shame. My parents are small business owners so I learned early and often that good customer service keeps customers coming back and making recommendations to others.
It is rare to have a good customer service experience in the “real world” or online.
And I think that comes with the devaluation of stuff. Now when things are cheap, the items don’t have much value to the sales person or to the buyer, so there doesn’t need to be an effort to keep the customer pleased.
That review is so worth reading, if only for the use of the word Lichtensteinesque to describe the dust jacket art.
I don’t know enough about it to nominate it myself. But, if a bunch of us read it, maybe we should think about making it official.