When is the last time someone offered to shake your hand? When was the last time you spoke to a human person on the phone during a business dispute? Can you ever remember a time when you purchased something from an online shop and heard the words "thank you for coming in today"? Most of us can't!
How do you feel when after spending 15 minutes pressing buttons on your phone to get to a live customer service agent, you are told you have the wrong department, and are transferred back into that very system of buttons and recorded voices? Now picture if you will, as a child, stopping in at your local bakery or pizza joint and hearing the person behind the counter greet you and your family. As you leave the establishment, you hear "thank's for coming in and have a nice day".
There is a very big gap between these two situations, and what bothers me is that my children never had the chance to enjoy the second option, because they were born in a world of instant gratification and information overload. Communication has taken a hit through texting, and worst of all, people seem emotionally spent and trying to find a little spark at the local coffee shop just to get through their day.
I recently purchased business cards from Vista Print, and about twelve hours later, after going over some paperwork, I realized that I had put mine and my wife’s personal cell phone numbers on the cards instead of our business number. At midnight, I logged into Vista Print and clicked edit on my order. I was able to edit, but it ended up making a new set of cards for me and charging me again. I was fine with this, as I figured I would just cancel the original order that was done incorrectly. To my surprise, I was unable to cancel the old order, as it was already printed (this is how fast Vista Print is) so now I was charged twice, and half the cards I had coming to me were not usable. It was now 12:30 am, and I sent my plea through email to Vista Print customer service begging to make the change. I read on their site that they may give store credit, but I couldn’t afford not to get my money back. So here I was, new business owner, low start up funds, and I made a mistake. This was not Vista Prints fault at all, but here’s what happened; Vista Print customer service emailed me at 1:30 am and reiterated what I told them about my mistake, to make sure they understood, and they told me the original cards were already shipped but that I could keep them or recycle them as I wished as Vista Print was refunding my money to my business credit card. Vista Print went on to say that they processed the new cards with the corrections, and gave me a discount price equivalent to the cost. Bottom line, Vista Print knew I was the one at fault, but they placed no blame, they could have stuck to policy and made their money, but instead they made a life-long customer who will do everything I can to tell the world there is still some heart in online businesses like Vista Print. This is the human touch we strive for at Correlare.com.