Acknowledging emails

Amelia Bedelia

Wed, Apr 29 2020, 4:44 pm

Singleagain's rant as an employee got me thinking of my vent as a customer.

I guess the local heimishe stores are not using to doing business by email or online these days due to the situation, but I can think of 4 situations in the last couple of weeks which really frustrated me due to the salespeople not properly responding to my messages.

1. I called a local shoe store before yom tov to inquire about purchasing shoes for DS who needed shoes desperately. The proprietor immediately emailed me photos of the shoe racks and told me that he'd be doing home deliveries. We selected the shoes that we were interested, and I emailed him with my selections, credit card info, and personal info. After a couple of days without hearing from him, I called again and he said, yes, he has a lot of customers who are waiting. He's preparing them and will be delivering over the next few days. A few days before Pesach I attempted to contact him again and left several messages, but after no response for 24-48 hours (I forget), I came up with another solution and purchased shoes elsewhere. Later that day, I received a return call. "Hi! I'm calling from Shoe Store A. You left me a message? You wanted to place an order?"

2. A toy store was advertising phone/email/WhatsApp orders. I tried messaging through WhatsApp to place an order for a craft kit as a chol hamoed activity. I received an automatic response that due to the high volume of orders they are not accepting WhatsApp orders. Phone and email orders only. I then sent my order via email and received an automatic response acknowledging my order and saying that if I'd like to place an order to please email a very precise order of exactly what I want, quantity, contact info, credit card info, etc. and to please avoid calling the store unless it's urgent. (So WhatsApp is out. Phone orders are out. So only email is acceptable.) I replied to the email with every single point they requested, making sure my order was extra clear in case the original email wasn't clear enough. By the time Erev Pesach came and I still hadn't received a response, I ordered it on Amazon for a bit more money. I was surprised to hear over chol hamoed that others had been receiving their afikoman gifts from there. Somehow, their orders managed to be processed. After receiving my Amazon order I emailed the toy store back, asking if my email was overlooked, but in any case, please disregard my order as I do not need it anymore. Of course, it was also ignored. Instead, I got an automatic reply saying that due to the high volume of orders they are only accepting phone orders!

3. It's a real treat for my family, but bedikas chametz night we ordered dinner from a local restaurant. Somehow, a starter dish was left out of the package and all the side dishes which were supposed to accompany the mains (iow, the sides are officially free but we were counting on them) were also not there. I tried calling the store, was having trouble getting through, finally got through, started explaining my issue, was put on hold and waited 38 minutes until I gave up. I totally understand. It was the busiest night of the year. I emailed the store with the issue, and attached the invoice and ticket # as proof. I assumed I wouldn't hear from them before Pesach, but here we are, 2 weeks later and have still not received a reply. I called the store today and got credit applied to my account.

4. I placed an online order at a local childrenswear retailer last week. The default shipping method was store pickup. I only realized after I clicked on submit order so immediately emailed them if we can change it to shipping. I was actually wondering what was taking so long for the shipping tracking info to be available, and received a phone call today that it's ready for pickup.

So like I said, I understand that these stores are overwhelmed and not used to internet/email orders, etc. But somehow I find that when dealing with frum businesses, they don't seem to have the knowledge and awareness of how to acknowledge messages, reply to messages, and follow up, which includes making sure they read all their messages. It makes me feel invisible, and it got to the point where I was checking my phone and email settings to see if it's possible that somehow my messages just don't get sent, which is why they never see them!

amother

Lawngreen

Thu, Apr 30 2020, 2:49 am

Amelia Bedelia wrote:

Don't know how to do bold but I'm referring to #2.
A family member had the same thing. When she confronted him about not replying, he said we sent out an auto-reply....She got so mad, doesn't state anywhere that you don't accept email orders! All he was able to do was give her her order an apologize.