Jan. 14, 2009 - Why Scholastic Lost My Business or The sixth or seventh email, now an open letter.
Hi, Scholastic:
My account is showing only as debited for the order, not credited. I will continue to monitor my account over the next few days.
Your exceptionally brief note and Scholastic's lack of apology for the bad service I received confirms my thinking that Scholastic does not care to earn my business. I have already shared my poor customer service experience with 150 home educators on the yahoo group I moderate. Several have warned of similar online ordering problems they have encountered.
It would have been simple to earn my business back. When a different company sent me a wrong order a few years back, not only was I told to keep the incorrect item with their complements, but they sent me the correct item at once with priority shipping at no charge. I received an apology note explaining that while mistakes happen, they certainly strive for better and would I please accept this $10 credit toward a future order to give them another try? You can bet I did.
When a local pool we joined did not have part of the facility ready by opening day, they sent each pass holder a note specifically explaining the hold up and the new target date for completion. Additionally, they sent us two free guest passes and explained they would add an additional weekend for passholders at the end of the season. In short, they took "lemons" that they really couldn't control and made lemonade. Not only did I rejoin the pool the next year, but I also told many of my friends about the manager's excellent handling of a potentially problematic situation.
Your company took "lemons" and has made rotten lemons from my problems. If home educators can't order for the first time on line or can't change their school address on line, that should be clearly stated somewhere on the website. It isn't.
Second, when a home educator already in your system emails to correct their address, as I did immediately after seeing my online order had defaulted to the old address, it should be corrected. If a call from verification is necessary, home educators who call in should be connected through to verification, not told they will have to wait until verification calls them. Two of my items went out of stock while I waited for that call.
Third, if verification says there will be no problem shipping to the correct address, the order should ship to the correct address.
Fourth, if it does not, customer service should not then say it is impossible to do so. What was the purpose of my online order, the email and the phone call then?
Fifth, customer service should not compound the error by saying they would not credit the account until the items sent to the incorrect address make it back. And when a customer specifically states they would like an apology, perhaps one should be forthcoming.
Sixth, if customer service then changes it's mind and decide to credit prior to receiving the incorrectly addressed order back, perhaps it should also acknowledge all the previous irritations and mistakes.
Imagine if instead of steps 1-6 from Scholastic, I had instead gotten the address corrected, a prompt apology, my order sent for free to my correct address and a credit to try Scholastic again along with a vow to do better next time? For $7 and change, you not only lost a customer but have generated poor publicity sent to 150 potential customers and several other folks telling of similar (though not as extensive) ordering difficulties.
Seems to me that's much larger than a $7 screw up. For the sake of your company, I hope you will address these training and process issues.
Sincerely,
Holly
Comments
Jan. 15, 2009 - Shame on you Scholastic!
Posted by Carol in CT
1. In this economy, no company can afford to lose even one customer.
2. Bad companies completely underestimate the power of the internet and how many people can learn of a bad company in only a matter of minutes.
3. Scholastic should apologize in writing from a VP and include a $25 gift certificate.
