Below is the catalogue of frustration:
- Muji (for whatever reason) failed to show the secure confirmation page for Visa to allow me to confirm my identity.
- Links of London kept on giving me different excuses (everything from system problems to my transaction being declined and an aborted session).
- LastMinute.com sold me a couple of, what I thought would be, straight forward spa vouchers... except for the fact that they've since just dumped me in the lap of the provider who 1) Sent me the wrong vouchers; 2) Took 2 emails (6 days apart) to even respond to my complaint; 3) Sent out a correct voucher, but NOT the two that I had ordered and paid for, and; 4) Have still to respond to my last email about this issue. If I had known that the Purity Spa at Hilton Park Lane was such an administrative shambles, I'd probably have taken my business elsewhere to begin with...
- Molton Brown sent me an email on November 9 saying they had dispatched my products... all fine and dandy, except for the fact that more than 2 weeks later I've not received them. Postal strike or not - that's just not good enough!
At least I had one positive shopping experience today when I received a confirmation of shipping from Amazon.co.uk for a printer I had ordered barely two hours previously. I must mention that Amazon have made several major screw-ups in the past, but at least they've made provisions for the misguided souls at Royal Mail and have found ways of guaranteeing delivery. I just wish that had been the case 7 years ago when I decided to do all of my Xmas shopping with them and the products arrived 2nd week of January despite me having ordered them at the beginning of November...
KEY LESSON: Even if we have moved into a digital age, there are still way too many amateurs when it comes to eCommerce and their projected customer service images don't fit in any way with the reality when it comes to dealing with them virtually. Even simple things like ensuring that URLs resolve without having to type in "www." seems to be an issue for at least one of the aforementioned sites and considering that a solution became commonplace at the turn of the century this shows us one of two things:
Either the marketing/customer service/sales people still don't "get" the Internet (or downplay its value - very dangerous in the times of social media where bad word of mouth can spread like wildfire), or;
The techies/agencies responsible for building the sites are either technically incompetent/lazy - and, even more worryingly, nobody on the client side has either the skills or the inclination to bother doing any kind of quality control
What baffles me as a marketer is the way these brands either don't seem to care about their customers or their brand and cannot seem to fathom the rule of lowest common denominator. If this is the experience I've had with Brand X online why should I trust in that brand to deliver a better experience in any other channel?
I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving - and Black Friday. Personally, even as an Internet veteran and digital marketer for a decade and a half, I'd urge you to consider doing your shopping in person this year.

