Customer Service

As Mothers Day is this weekend, I wanted to do something special for the ladies in my life. So I ordered flowers, and scheduled them to be delivered on specific dates. These ladies are important to me, and since I was going to be on the road the week before Mom's day, I wanted to be sure it didn't sneak up on me. So I took care of it beforehand. Or so I thought.

Here's the email that I received this morning...."Dear customer, we received your order for mothers day bouquet, scheduled to be delivered on Tuesday May 11. Since Mothers Day is May 9, we feel you would want them to be there in time for the holiday, so we have changed your order and are shipping them today, May 5. We apologize for any inconvenience, sincerely..."

Seriously. No kidding. They changed the delivery date on my order without checking with me. Really??? What if I had sent flowers to my girlfriend, and they decided that I really meant for them to go to my wife instead? And what if I had never referred to my wife as "Pookie" as it said on the card, nor had I ever taken her to the Romantic Hearts Hunting Lodge and Possum Exporium, as referenced. (lucky for me, my girlfriend and wife are one in the same). But the florist doesn't know that! I was agitated!

Why was it such a big deal to me that the delivery date was changed? Well, cuz my mom-in-law (who really is more like a mom to me) was going to be traveling over the holiday...and would not be home until May 11. The flowers would be dead when she got back! Isn't that supposed to be the ultimate insult, to send someone dead flowers, to show them how much you really care? Thanks a LOT, son.

Well, I replied to the email that was sent, kindly explained the error, and respectfully asked that it be corrected. About 3 minutes later, I get a reply from Jerome, in customer service (apparently he uses that term loosely). Here's what Jerome had to say...."I'm sorry, your order has already been shipped, and there is no way that we can make any changes. Very sorry for the inconvenience. Sincerely, Jerome". Really, Jerome? Sorry for the inconvenience??? Inconvenience is when you purchase something, get it home, take it out of the box, realize it doesn't work, and have to take it back to the store for an exchange. THAT's an inconvenience. Inconvenience is when you visit the drive thru, order a cheeseburger with no mustard, receive EXTRA mustard, and have to drive back around to the window again to get your order right. THAT's an inconvenience. Inconvenience is...well, you get the picture. THIS is not inconvenience. THIS is an error in customer service. THIS has me completely unsatisfied. And now, you've just made error number two :-)

So, I dialed the 800 number that was NOT included in Jerome's reply, took a deep breath, and determined I was going to be polite to whomever answered the phone...unless his name was Jerome. Apparently Jerome was busy crafting another email customer care masterpiece, or he had just left to teach his class on how to win friends and influence people. Either way, Janet answered. And she sounded like she meant it when she said, "how can I help you?".

Well, I explained the situation to her, in detail, carefully retracing all the steps. She was completely silent when I told her of Jerome's thoughtful email reply. I suspected she might be getting ready to give me the same answer as the King of Courtesy & Common Sense, but I later realized she must have put me on mute so she could scream to whomever was listening in the call center, "JEROME HAS DONE IT AGAIN!!!" The reason I know this is because the next words out of her mouth were, "you are kidding me, right?" To which I replied, "no mam". And she promptly began to assure me that there most definitely would be another shipment going out to my mom-in-law, at no cost to me, whenever I wanted it to get there. And that she was so sorry for their error that never should have happened. And that she was making a note of the episode so that all the supervisors would see it, and work to see that it didn't happen again.

Problem solved. Graciously and expeditiously. Just as you would expect from someone with "customer service" in their title. I thanked Janet for her kindness, asked her to wish Jerome good luck in his career as a Disney Entertainment Host (not really!) and hung up, satisfied.

Thanks, ProFlowers. You got it right. Janet is a champ! You're not paying her enough. And I will be back. But I won't be writing to Jerome anytime soon :-)