Staying true to customer-service excellence, even if it costs us a sale

On March 21, we recorded our first sale on the AnytownUSA website, a size XL Pennsylvania Craft Beer Tee destined for Northern California.

The order shipped two days later (having been received on a Saturday) and arrived at its final destination two days after that, according to tracking provided by the U.S. Postal Service.

But on May 8, I received a voice mail from the customer, saying that she had not received the package. Worse yet, she said that her email to Stay had been rejected.

“So you need to refund me immediately,” she said, adding that if I didn’t do so within an hour that she would dispute the charge on her credit card.

I never want an unhappy customer, much less one who never received what we sent.

I immediately left the customer a voice mail and texted her, providing her with the tracking number by way of confirming the delivery.

“I have contacted the postal service to investigate this further and will keep you posted,” I wrote. “Please feel free to get back to me with any questions or comments. I look forward to resolving this to your satisfaction.”

Confirmed delivery

I didn’t hear anything from her until May 14, when I received another voice mail, essentially repeating what she had said in her first call. She betrayed no awareness of my week-earlier responses.

Once we connected, it was clear that she was confused about what she bought, as if she had multiple orders in limbo. She asked me to describe the tee she had purchased, at one point turning to her husband to ask whether he had seen such an item arrive in the mail.

She didn’t appear to be anticipating the arrival of a Pennsylvania Craft Beer Tee, nor did she seem to understand that Stay is among hundreds of independent vendors comprising AnytownUSA’s made-in-America marketplace, and that we fulfill our orders directly.

The bottom line is that I don’t know what happened to the package. I have great faith in the U.S. Postal Service, which reconfirmed the delivery. Was the customer honest with me? I assume she was.

But I can’t explain why, after presumably receiving a delivery confirmation from AnytownUSA, she didn’t immediately act if she couldn’t locate the package.

After consulting with AnytownUSA about my options (including sending a replacement tee), I reimbursed the customer as the safer bet. The customer thanked me and said “sorry for the confusion!”

We lost a sale and a tee. But we always were going to do the right thing.

Without that, what are we?

Stay true.