Research shows that customers are more likely to use social media for product or service reviews when they had a bad experience than when they had a good one. At RepXchange we’re all about celebrating great sellers, so when we learn about sellers who offer excellent service in the spirit of fair trade, we’ll blog about it!
First story out of the gate is about Music Center Ink. Recently my husband got a call from his brother in Europe who had just made a purchase from them on eBay, but failed to see that the merchant would not accept payments from non-US PayPal accounts. Typically he would pay for the item and ask for it to be shipped to our address in the US, and then we would either forward it to his address in Europe or bring it with us when visiting.
So, when the payment was declined, my brother-in-law wrote the merchant an email asking if they could send my husband a PayPal invoice for the product instead, which was fine with the merchant. As it turned out, we were leaving for Europe and he wanted the package to get here in time for us to bring it with us.
To make a long story short, for whatever reason, the new invoice never reached my husband’s inbox, so 3 days before we’re leaving for Europe my husband sent the merchant payment via PayPal without having an invoice, hoping the payment situation would be resolved and result in speedy shipping.
The merchant promised to get the package in the mail immediately, but in order to get to us in time, it needed to ship priority, with a $32 surcharge (the item was originally listed with free shipping).
My husband called the merchant to pay the surcharge with his credit card, but said that he thought it was unfair that we would have to be penalized because the merchant hadn’t been able to bill us in time to ship the package regular mail. After escalating the issue to the manager, the entire $32 surcharge was waived, which I’m sure killed their margins completely, but was still the right thing to do.
So, lesson to merchants, it’s ok to slip, but you don’t have to fall. Maybe someone will blog about the experience and recommend you!