No, not THAT Amazon, the Amazon.ca one.
I have taken to ordering some things from Amazon. Things I can either not get locally or cannot get locally at a reasonable price. I know, I'm a horrible person.
Well, I put in an order of four items a few days ago and was told they would arrive Monday (yesterday). They have always been very accurate with their shipping dates and things have always been here on time. At about 3:00PM I checked the website and saw that my order was, "On the truck and will be delivered by 10:00 PM." I checked again at 9:00 and saw, "Delivered. Handed to resident"! Well, it wasn't handed to me and I would have seen the truck in the driveway, and I hadn't. I checked the porch and even the workshop porch. No parcel.
I found the Customer Service number and called, it was answered quickly and by a human! Score one point! I explained my dilemma and the woman was sympathetic. I told her I lived alone and was the only "resident". She asked what I wanted, a re-shipment or a refund. I wanted a re-shipment and she started the paperwork but discovered one item could not be re-shipped. OK, I will take a refund on that. By now it was about 11:00 PM. All taken care of.
At about 1:00 PM today (Tuesday), my neighbour called to say a parcel had been left on her porch and she had only now discovered it! The driver left it at the wrong address and certainly did not, "Hand it to the resident"!
I called Customer Service back and explained. We tried to cancel the re-shipment and may have been successful. One item may get through and if it does she says I will either have to pay for it or return it. Returning it is a pain so I will just pay for it and keep it until I need it.
So, all's well that ends well but I had to spend about an hour on the phone over two days. Am I discouraged? Na, I will give them another chance.
I find Amazon returns to be pretty slick, but then I have to go to the post office anyway to pick up my mail, so it is really just a matter of printing the label they email you and sticking it on the box. A lot easier than doing the same in a sticks and bricks store.
ReplyDeleteAnd I assume they pay the return postage? Well, I won't be afraid to try it next time.
DeleteAmazon has great customer service and it's one of the reasons they are so successful. And ultimately, the fault in this case wasn't even theirs, it was the (probably contract) delivery driver.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, it was the (probably overworked) contract driver that messed up. In my dealings with Customer Service I made it clear that I wasn't blaming them, just looking for a solution and it looks like everything will work out. I sadly suspect there is a lot of theft and fraud at the delivery end which just means we all have to pay more.
DeleteThe pandemic taught us some valuable lessons. As Kevin says, Amazon has excellent customer service. Why go to all the hassle to drive around, shopping for prices, or in-stock items when they can be ordered quickly and easily on line and delivered to your front door? Groceries, car parts, clothes and more and local businesses have caught on as well. They still need to hire pickers, drivers, customer service people so it's good all around. The future, AI will take away sh---y jobs and give people the opportunity to do great things.
ReplyDelete