Customer experience during December Dec16 '05
Phew. I was very close to writing an extremely sour entry about a poor customer experience, recently. Thankfully, it’s been partially resolved, so I’m inclined to give them the "benefit of the doubt."
I’m referring to Gristedes Online Supermarkets of New York - whom I ordered some items from, through Amazon.com.
Basically, here’s the situation, in a nutshell:
- Order placed by me on December 4, 2005. The order is for very basic things - nothing fancy, or out-of-stock.
- Electronic receipt immediately sent to me, from Amazon.com, stating that my order is expected to ship that same day - December 4, and that the expected delivery date would be anywhere from December 8 to December 13, 2005.
- December 13 rolls around, and still no Amazon.com box, with my Gristedes items in it.
- I decide it’s the "holidays," so I should allow them a couple more days, before I vent.
- December 15 rolls around, and still no items, so I attempt to contact the seller, Gristedes. My email to them simply stated the above terms - the item is already two days late, from it’s latest expected arrival date. To me - that’s very late - even considering the "holidays."
- My email is sent back to me, quite abruptly, with a Mail Delivery System subject, stating that my message was never received, and that there is a "permanent error." (The only permanent error I could think of was my judgement call, when deciding to order from Gristedes in New York.)
- Today, I receive a real email, from a person - attempting to resolve the issue:
Dear Mr. Thommes:
Thank you for your e-mail and thank you for ordering from Gristedes Online Supermarkets of New York. In response to your e-mail, I would like to apologize for the delay in shipping your order out to you. I can assure you this delay is not the norm and not indicative of Gristedes Online Supermarkets of New York. I have confirmed with our Inventory and Shipping departments that this order will be shipped from our order fulfillment center shortly and once this order is shipped, you will receive an e-mail confirmation that will also include a UPS tracking number. Please keep in mind that the date range that is supplied to you upon placing your order is not based on our inventory and it is only an estimate provided by Amazon.com. I am confident any future orders will exceed your expectations in both timeliness and quality.
In the meantime, if you have any further questions, feel free to contact us at this e-mail address. Thank you for your business and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Have a great holiday!
So... essentially my order was never shipped.
I would hope they’d send it overnight now - or possibly two day, to make up for the lost time - but we’ll see.
I’m not expecting it anytime soon, I can tell you that.
But I appreciated the email response, and I try to stay positive about such things - it’s a busy time of year, and things get screwed up.
Categories: Holidays 
, Rants , Services
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is published and produced by Matt Thommes - an independent publishing enthusiast, mobile blogger, content creator, informative writer, web developer from Chicago.
Never one to conform, Matt intends to promote the effect the web has on our lives, in an effort to intensify, instruct, and clarify all that is happening around us.
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