Quick Fix. Happy Camper. April 18, 2008
Posted by engjake in business.Tags: Americommerce, mals-e, patience, shopping carts
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Funny this happened today after my last post about patience. One of my websites has used a shopping cart called Mals-e for years. The cart is real simple, but it’s very dependable and works. I have looked at many, many carts because I would like something fancier. I even found a great cart called Americommerce and have a few sites hosted there. The guys over there have helped me customize it so that i can make the switch pretty easy. I just haven’t convinced myself to try and fix something that isn’t broken.. even though it is lacking a lot of cool features that Americommerce has. So for now I’m trying to get my Americommerce websites working well enough that they can be a significant source of income before I risk making the change. Mals has worked great but we have kind of outgrown it as it’s lacking a lot of features that would make our day to day a lot easier – Americommerce has it.
Anyway, after more than 5 years, I had my first issue with Mals-e today. Suddenly if you added a product to the shopping cart, continued shopping and then added another item to the cart, the second item would overwrite the first. Not a great situation. Without thinking about it I picked up the phone and called the number on Mals-e’s website. You’d think I would have thought about the time difference as I dialed the overseas number, but I didn’t. Daytime is the busiest so I was just real concerned about getting the issue fixed for our customers. Just as my call was answered I realized it was about 9:30 at night for them. As luck would have it Mal himself answered the phone and had the issue fixed within minutes. Thanks Mal. The planets were aligned to make all of that happen so quickly, I’m sure.
Patience is a virtue April 17, 2008
Posted by engjake in business.Tags: ecommerce, patience, paypal
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I think i have a lot of patience until I get really impatient about something. I have serveral little issues I am trying to resolve with websites, some of which I am relying on the service provider to help me fix. One of these service providers is Paypal. I know Paypal is a big company and so resolving some issues can take some time. However, when I set up our account with them we went through extra paper work to get it set up correctly under our business name. Now they have placed limitations without warning and their reasoning is the exactly why they made me fill out the extra paper work when I set up my account. So now I have a sizable amount of money in my paypal account, but they will not allow me to withdraw it. I realize I am one of thousands of customers but I think certain circumstances require a little more attention than others.
This reminds me of an experience I had with one of my suppliers a couple of years ago. This particular brand has a niche in the market place and they are apparenlty quite proud of that. As a result, they figure they can act however they want and all of their customers will keep buying from them because the demand is there and you can’t find the product from anyone else – which is actually true unfortunately. Anyway, I had a large order and they completely dropped the ball on it. I called to speak to a sales rep about it and of course they have their rules they have to abide by and would not help me resolve the issue. I tried different representatives hoping someone would realize the error and take responsibility. Finally I worked my way up to the top and got the sales manager for the entire US.
I explained the issue and this was his response in a very rude tone, ”You are one of thousands of customers. You think I can give you personal attention on your orders?” Of course I said, “Yes, if you want my business I think it is approriate when they have messed up a large order and ruined my chances of doing business with that customer again.” I can’t remember his exact words but it was pretty much to the effect that it really doesn’t matter to him if I buy from them or not. The problem I have is that customers ask for their products all the time so of course I want to sell it. I’ve been patient though, and now that we are selling much, much more. They kind of value us as a customer now - they are still the most difficult supplier we have to work with.
