We ordered some flowers online for my friend's birthday. There was supposed to be a balloon as well but it was missing. Not to mention that the flowers arrived very late. My friend was contacted by the florist and she promised that the balloon would be delivered next day. We waited all day long but nothing arrived so I made a phone call to ask what happened.
The lady told me the courier left the balloon in his car and he is off today. If I want they will deliver it tomorrow. At this point I wasn't very happy so I told her that this entire experience is very frustrating for me in a calm tone. Unexpectedly, she started ranting about the harassing calls and emails she got in the past two days for straight 2 minutes. I didn't even get to say a single word. And she hanged up on me.
I found it amusing that she complained about all the harassing but she wouldn't let me talk even. Otherwise she would've known that it wasn't my purpose at all.
So I called her back and politely asked her to calm down and hear me out. Apparently the reason why the flowers arrived late was because we didn't pay for direct delivery. Therefore there's a 5-hour window for the flowers to be delivered. And she has no idea what time it would arrive because there's no way to check it whatsoever. But when we ordered on the website it just showed 'premium'. The direct delivery option was nowhere to be found and no information was provided on the website. We assumed that by paying 'premium' it would be delivered pretty fast and unfortunately that wasn't the case.
After a much more cooled down conversation she agreed that she might need to make some changes to the website. And in the future if I want to order something I will need to call her to arrange for direct delivery like all her other customers.
And I told her that she can keep the balloon for someone else since it's pointless to get it now.
Honestly, I don't mind to pay that extra 25 bucks for a direct delivery but we never knew about that option until the day of delivery. And the balloon was like a fishbone in my throat cause it's something so small yet it was promised but never delivered.
What was worse, obviously, is that I called to ask about something else but got a 2-minute-long ranting. I absolutely despise any person who made the harassing phone calls to her but I surely didn't deserve to be treated like that. Throughout the two phone calls I was trying to calm her down to have a normal conversation. Ironically, she claimed that she provided service 'above and beyond' but in reality I was the one went above and beyond to calm her down as a customer.
We all should try to understand each other better and communicate well as customers and service providers I believe. Especially in this pandemic.
But a customer shouldn't be blamed for misinformation nor should he/she be charged extra for 'hidden' service.
A service provider shouldn't promise something but eventually provide something else or simply not providing anything at all.
Customers pay for the entire service instead of the products alone. If extra charges were to be made for better service it should be clarified at the beginning.
I personally understands why she was so angry cause my family runs a business too. Clients can be quite often very rude and provoking for sure.
Yet providing subpar service is never a good choice. Let alone lashing out at frustrated customers. read more