Getting a customer to chose your brand is difficult in the sea of choices these days. Once that customer chooses your brand, allowing them to have an easy buying experience is and should be simple. That was not my experience with Skip Hop, a baby diaper bag and developmental toy company out of NYC.
I have a Skip Hop diaper bag and have loved it so I recommended it to my friend who is about to give birth. I offered to buy her this as a gift and she was delighted. Easy peesy right. No. As my address is in Canada and her address is in the U.S. it made it impossible to purchase it on-line. So for a few days I would call the company's 1 800 number to be told by the receptionist, who liked to call me 'hun', that the customer service team was in a meeting and I could call back in about 40 minutes. I could call back, me the customer who wanted to pay them money for what truly is an overpriced diaper bag. On Friday afternoon when they were in a meeting again, I had had it and wrote them a very disappointed and frustrated email but at the same time giving them my card number to process the order. No one responded. I called again this afternoon and the customer service rep was slightly apologetic but not that genuine and not that helpful.
Instead of being able to take my order on the phone, which is not allowed (which again, here I am the customer just wanting to buy your product and you are putting an obstacle in my way), she told me to put in a fake billing address and use the paypal option. There is no way I could have figured this out on-line, no clear direction for any of that. She didn't offer to walk me through any of it on-line to assure that I managed to be successful this time. She eventually after I conveyed my extreme frustration offered me free shipping, which was already part of the package on-line for anyone ordering x amount of dollars. I then had to ask for a discount myself, which was a meager 10%. Had they handled the situation differently, been more helpful and apologetic, I would have blogged about their saintly customer service. Instead, I am telling you that although I did end up buying the diaper bag because I had told my friend that is what I was buying her and I know she will like it, I recommend that you pick another company for your baby needs. They are obviously not in touch with their target customer, who are busy parents that don't have time for this nonsense. We'll see if they have a response for this post. I will send it for them to have a chance to respond.
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