March 22, 2009

Poor Customer Service

  • Great Prices
  • Great Customer Service
  • Fast Shipping
  • Quality Products
For most of us these are the main points when choosing an online retailer for our scrapbook purchases. There are plenty of online stores to buy our goodies, so we expect the above if we are to give a certain retailer our business.

Today I would like to talk about a company that failed in a few of these areas. Custom Crops First off they do have GREAT prices. They do offer QUALITY products. The areas that that failed miserably in are Customer Service, and Fast Shipping. Here is my story:

I ordered a Cricut Cartridge (Quality Product) for just $44.99 (Great Price.) This was a Valentine's Day gift from my hubby so I ordered on Friday February 13th. This was a Friday before a Monday holiday.

From the Custom Crops Website:
Packages are typically shipped in 2 to 4 business days after receipt of payment. Shipping is typically via the United States Postal Service or UPS. Insurance and delivery confirmation is included on all orders at no extra cost.
So I expected to receive confirmation that my product had shipped by Friday, February 20th. A week later. Nothing. Everything still says processing when I go to my order on their website. I decided to use their online form to send an inquiry. In most businesses it is better to send a letter instead of make a phone call so there is a paper trail.I did not receive a response. I went back to my order confirmation on the 25th and it was still processing. 2 days later it finally appeared that my order had shipped.

Order History
02/13/2009 Order Received
02/25/2009 Processing
02/27/2009 Shipped

I received my product the following week on March 2nd. C'mon 3 and a half weeks? For a product that is in stock??? I sent another letter via their online form:

My letter:
I just wanted to let you know that I am
very disappointed in the lack of

customer service with your company. My
husband ordered me a Cricut Cartridge

on the 13th of February. When it had not
arrived by the 25th of the month, I

used this form to ask about the order.
Today, is now the 4th of March, and I

finally received my order on the 2nd of
March.


My first complaint is that you state that
you will reply to questions posted
here
within 24 hrs. It has been a week, and my
post was ignored.
My second is the delay in
shipping my product. Your shipping terms
say that
you will ship within 2-4 business
days. I ordered on a Friday, and the
following
Monday was a holiday. Ok, with that is
should have shipped at the
latest, on Friday,
February 20th. I asked if the item was back

ordered....again no response.

And before you ask, yes I looked at your
FAQ section, and yes, I checked my

SPAM folder. I think even after the order
was processed that someone from
your company
should have had the decency to reply to me.


If this is how you do business, I am
sorry to say that I will not return,

nor will I refer any of my scrapbooking
community to this site. Please

respond.
This time I did receive a response:

I do understand your frustration with
our shipping times. We have been
extremely behind these past few weeks.
However, I did want you to know that
I researched our emails and this
Is the first one we have received from
this email. We take our emails very
seriously and do not ignore any emails.
Sorry, your email did not reach us !!
Thank you for your thoughts and I hope
you enjoy your products !!

Hope that helps!
We strive to be a 5-star retailer everyday!
Feel free to call us toll-free at
877.563.1233 if you have any questions or
you can always e-mail us.
They did receive my first email, to which the above letter states that it not receive:

We have received your message at Custom Crops!‏
From: Custom Crops Customer Service Team (info@CustomCrops.com)
Sent: Thu 2/26/09 12:14 AM
To: Katt
 
Thank you for your inquiry!
We have received your message and
will respond to
it as soon as
possible. In the meantime,
feel free to check out our frequently

asked questions on our website.
We try to keep this list updated
each day with
the latest information.
So I sent another email, directly from the response above, and another using the contact form. I have not had a reply to either. So where do I go from here? Well, no matter how great the prices are, poor customer service wins out here. I will not be buying another product from Custom Crops. Unless of course someone responds to me and maybe offers free shipping or $10 off my next order ;)

Please leave a comment if you have had a good or bad experience with this company!
_____________________________

2 comments:

Lindsay Weirich said...

Hi Katt, Love your cards you have been posting. I order from Custom Crops and had great customer service and timly delivery, the exception being thet a year ago cricut had the buy 2 get one free deal so I ordered my 2 carts from CC and they were sold out so I had a 3 month wait! They did send me weekly emails updating us on what had been coming in and when we could expect out products to arrive in the store abnd they gave us the chance to cancel our order anytime, I waited and got my carts as well as the free on from Provo Craft, actully the freebie came before the CC ones did! They have the lowest prices so people were scrambling to order from them and take advantage of the deal so I understand they were sold out. Hopefully your experience was a fluke. I agree you should get a gift certificate, at least free shipping, on your next order so they can prove to you how they normally operate. So How do you like Storybook? I think it looks awesome, my next "must have!"

Amy said...

I just had a borrible experience with them that appears to still not be over. I ordered my products at the end of February and received them the end of March. I had paid extra for Express shipping and at the time of my orer the site said 1 to 2 business days to ship. I too have sent several emails. All I want is to be refunded for the express shipping. I got the same email as you stating that she had not received any of my emails and that no email goes ignored. A $10 gift card would not be enough for me, that is for sure. I will never shop there again. As far as I am concerned the least you can do is answer an email and honor the express shipping option. If you are not going to do that, then you will not see any more money from me.

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