Great Customer Support is Still Rare

I had a very interesting online support experience recently. Anyone who has been following these blogs knows I love to online shop to see how others do it and is there anything we can improve on. Over the years this practice has incrementally improved our shipping experience. I also shop off our competitors often too to get a handle on what they are doing and are we missing a trick.

I’ve never actively hidden this and believe this is an obvious learning exercise all businesses should do.

Well when I purchased off a nameless competitor last week they didn’t take it too kindly. I asked via email on Friday, 3 days after I ordered where my order was and can I have a tracking code. A few hours later I received an email with the tracking code which showed my parcel was in Europe and was expected sometime this week. 

I then made the fatal mistake of querying why this was not mentioned while ordering and why they advertise as 2-3 day shipping when they know shipping from the continent takes much longer. They obviously checked out the order and figured out it was me ordering and proceeded to send a torrent of abuse including legal and physical threats with some extraordinarily colourful language. I must say I was shocked and it really taught me a lesson on professionalism. I’m still at a total loss as to why they would get so aggressive with me for shopping with them, maybe it’s the same for any customer who asks them a question I don’t know.

I like to think we do customer support well and try our damnedest to be as transparent as we can be. We have next day shipping mainly because we actually have everything in stock in Ireland ready to be packed. Of course sometimes next day delivery doesn’t work out, mainly due to courier delays but we actively track orders and chase and solve problems often without the customer ever even knowing. We do all this because we want shopping with PlayBlue to be a great experience and I can promise if you ever contact us via email or phone we will ALWAYS be professional and fair. If you happen to own a rival sex shop you are of course welcome to shop off us too and we will treat you like any other customer. We have had friendly meetings with competitors in the past and only wish them the best and are happy to learn from them.

P.S. It is now Tuesday evening and the parcel still hasn’t turned up but I think it’d be like poking the bear to ask why lol.