Except for food (from Harris Teeter) and building supplies (from Home Depot), I do 95% of my shopping on Amazon. The other 5% of my shopping is directly from manufacturer’s websites for closeout sales, specialty products or items not available on Amazon.
Amazon excels at the logistics for online shopping:
- Fast, easily navigable website.
- Free and reliable shipping with prime.
- Straightforward process for returns, credits and reorders.
I make 100s of Amazon purchases each year. I have problems with fewer than 1% of them. Usually, that problem is a shipping delay which gets resolved a day later.
Whenever I need customer service, a quick online chat gets my issue resolved quickly.
This is what I want from online shopping – reliable and predictable sales, delivery and support.
A few weeks ago I had the opposite experience with a speciality manufacturer. I purchased a couple of winter shirts directly from the manufacturer because I couldn’t find them on Amazon.
I wasn’t anticipating any problems because I’ve purchased from this manufacturer in the past. Shipping is slower than Amazon, but I could accept that.
Famous last words.
My shirts never arrived.
After multiple delays, a 10 extra day wait, at least 6 calls into customer service, several service tickets opened and two “investigations” with no results, I gave up and contacted AMEX to dispute the charges.
I know what the problem was: the third-party shipper used by the manufacturer lost my package after it arrived at the local shipping depot.
First the shipper gave me the runaround for over a week. Then they told me they couldn’t locate the package and I should contact the seller for resolution.
When I contacted the seller, they opened a second case and told me it could take up to 4 weeks to complete an investigation.
I told them I didn’t want an investigation. They should read the shipper’s notes which clearly state they cannot locate the package. I requested a refund or replacement.
The manufacturer told me they couldn’t do that until they completed an investigation.
Keep in mind, we’re talking about 2 shirts that cost less than $100 that the shipper confirmed in writing had never been delivered.
I contacted AMEX, filed a dispute and had the charges reversed immediately
Funny enough, after I filed the dispute with AMEX, I found a third-party reseller on Amazon and ordered the shirts from them. They’ll be here next week.
And, on the off chance there’s a problem, I know Amazon will make it right.
Because that’s what Amazon does – every time – their job.
I don’t love everything about Amazon. Their labor practices have a bad rep. They’ve put many retailers out of business. They have monopoly power and don’t hesitate to use it to squeeze profits from their vendors, employees, contractors and resellers.
But they are masters at online selling, logistics and customer service. They make online shopping a pleasure.
I trust Amazon.
And that, my friends, is what brand loyalty all comes down to for me. Trust.
If I trust your company, I’m going to give you repeat business. I’ll pay a little bit extra. I’ll look for opportunities to buy other products from you. I’ll recommend you to my friends. I’ll write reviews. I’ll send surveys with thoughtful responses.
I’ll forgive you when you make occasional mistakes, as long as you work with me to rectify them. I’ll tolerate kinks in new services, beta versions of products, bugs and snafus.
But if If you break that trust (like the manufacturer above did with me), it will be nearly impossible for you to gain it
I still might buy from this manufacturer, because I appreciate the quality and price of its products. But I won’t ever buy from them directly again – why would I subject myself to repeating the shipping runaround? For the manufacturer, that will mean lower profits and fewer sales. For me, that means waiting longer to find deals from this brand on Amazon or at other specialty retailers. But it also makes it more likely I will consider other brands when making a purchase. (In fact, while dealing with this latest debacle, I purchase 2 shirts from a different manufacturer and found them to be cheaper and acceptable).
I can live with that.
My guess is the manufacturer can too – at least for a while. It is a lost opportunity for them though. I’ve been a loyal customer for 15 years and have spent $1000s with them. There is no doubt it will be less going forward.
All because they handled a misdelivery so poorly. It would have been simple for them to either ship out a replacement or give me a refund.
Sometimes businesses forget the basics. One of the ways I tried to prevent this when I was working was to call into customer service, buy a product online or find support for an issue as if I was a typical customer. If it was easy, I praised the workers and told their managers. If it was problematic, we tried to fix it before we lost customers.
Do your job. And when you screw up, make it right.