Customer Service: Is the customer always right? Dealing with enquiries and what we learnt along the way
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Welcome back to another episode of Accidentally Starting a Food Business by Condomaniac with me, Jen, and... Keh! I don't know why you did that so delayed. Yeah, got my drink again. What is it? Whiskey and Coke. Yeah, great. So, it's been almost two months since we have uploaded an episode. Yeah. Why? Why?

Yeah, that was on my list, actually. I don't actually know why. What have we been doing? Well, I've been trying to record this podcast for, like, this episode for a while, but I think, you know, it's the usual. We just got busy. We released a new product called Pizza the Action. I think we actually announced it on this podcast.

When we were still developing it. Yeah. And we have since actually released it and it's gone down really well. Yeah. So we've been kind of busy with that and just loads of other things. You know, small business life where you just, all your weekends are just filled up by stuff. So this podcast isn't always as high up on the list as I want it to be. But yeah, we're back. It's true. I think we've spent a lot more weekends, haven't we now? Yeah. Trying to...

I guess we should like, actually, we need to give a little update. So the last podcast was on January the 31st, I believe, which was my birthday, by the way. Oh, yeah. We didn't actually record then, but I think that's when we uploaded it. Anyway, I don't know how much we updated it last time, but basically some stuff has happened. So until the end of last year, both of us were still working full time day jobs.

And then since then, you had started working part-time four days a week. Yep. And what has since happened? Quit my job. Quit your job. Quit my job. Not for anything to do with them. They were amazing. But we were fortunate. Well, we've been fortunate enough for this business to do well enough for me to warrant doing that. I'm not going to...

take loads of money from condomaniac i'm planning on not but you know i mean you have that kind of option to it's a calculated risk yeah i mean taking it for transparency we haven't ever taken money out of the company at this point so it'll be interesting to start doing that because you know it's like

I don't know if any other business owners are listening. I don't know if you feel the same, but you're just trying to keep all the money in the bank with all your force. Like you're just trying to not get the balance to go down. So it'll feel pretty weird to take money out. But in other news, I have started working part-time now as well. I work four days a week on my day job since the beginning of February. So yeah, we're going to have lots more time. Probably not going to feel that way, but...

We will have some more time to work on Condomaniac, so that's really exciting. That's just an update I wanted to give. At the start. Yeah, because I guess, you know, our journey, it will change. We will have topics to talk about, but I feel like it's also good to just update you on what's happening in real time so that it gives more context because... Yeah, real-ish time. Yeah, slight delay, but...

But otherwise, it won't make sense if we talk about a topic in four years' time. And hopefully we'll have grown by then and people still think we're just this two-person hobby business. Yeah. We are trying. We're slightly growing, which is really nice. Yeah, we get that. But yeah, anyway, that was just a little pivot. Pivot! Pivot!

Pivot! Anyone, any other Friends fans out there? Yeah, I just saw that episode again. Friends is so overrated, I'm sorry, I have to say. Shut up. I've been watching Friends again on Netflix and there was that episode. It was good. Anyway, so what is today's episode about, Jen? It's about one of, one, like, it's a bit of a sore spot in my life. It's customer service. Okay. Right, so...

Let's unpack that. This is basically going to be therapy, is it? So let's unpack that. For me, a little bit. So I want to say, first thing I want to say is that I have actually worked in customer service-facing roles just in, you know, normal life. So when I was 19...

I worked in a supermarket alongside school where I used to work at a cash register. So I had like, you know, customer facing contact used to get, have to deal with complaints and things for six euros an hour at the time in Germany. So that was fun. And then I also used to waitress here in London. And I just, yeah, I just had some, some contact with customer service prior to this. Whereas you, you,

Well, to be fair, a lot of my jobs have been customer facing, but B2B. Yeah. I hate using buzzwords like B2B. Business to business. As in I've been like sending emails like, hi, Brenda, let's talk about this. Not like some pissed guy. Yeah, but we're talking end consumer. Yeah. Like working in a... Yeah. Like as in I've not been talking to like in a bar, like trying to... I've in fact actively avoided jobs where I have to deal with members of the public. Yeah.

Fair enough. So basically, I've already had a bit of a experience, I guess, in it. And I also had some like tiny micro micro businesses just like selling stuff on Etsy where you deal with people once in a while and you do customer service, I guess. So from that, I kind of knew what was, you know, what to expect. And I also just wanted to quickly say that we've been extremely fortunate with Condomaniac because we get customers.

very little emails or anything so maybe we get like one or two emails a week and we send about a thousand over a thousand parcels a month so that's a super tiny rate of just messages that we get which is you know great because if you don't hear from them that's basically a good thing what was what I think but

No news is good news. Yeah, and sometimes we get really nice. Not every interaction with a customer is negative. I mean, they're much more inclined to write to you if something is wrong. But we also get really great emails that just say, I really love your product, just wanted to let you know. That's the amazing side. It is nice. So I feel like this episode is going to take the format of me delving into your relationship with...

With customer service, Jen. Yeah. So I'm going to ask you a few questions and we'll riff around it. So my first question is, this is a pretty big topic, is the customer always right? That's the saying, isn't it? Customer's always right. What are your thoughts? I thought about this the other day. I don't think they are, but I think as a business you have to make them think that they are, like almost always. That's kind of the...

deal with it so it's just such a big topic so much to unpack but like what I always feel is that most of the customer service you do happens in your own head that you don't actually communicate to the customer so let's say you get an email from a customer that's really upset because maybe something they ordered arrived broken and they just project their upsetness on you so they're like it's your fault like why did you do this you didn't wrap it right it's your fault like fix it

And when you first read that, like at least I, I'm a pretty like an emotionally charged person. So I get, you know, immediately I get like my heart rate going and I have a really bad habit of reading stuff like that after hours. So I'll read an email like that at like 1am and I can't sleep because I can't stop thinking about it because I want to fix it right then and there, even though they're probably asleep and they don't really care that much about it. But, um,

Most of what's happening then is within me. So I have to, in my head, kind of just go through the whole thing and be like, this is what I'm going to fix it. This is what I'm going to say. And then I usually write draft out like several emails that I don't send. Yeah. Because usually the first email you send is not the best one. Yeah.

It's mainly you just saying, go fuck yourself. Well, no. I mean, not for an email like that. There have been some emails that really did get me going, which is just... Version three is, oh, of course, we'll help you. I mean, I think my style of customer service is just from the fact that I also, you know, I am a consumer. We all are consumers. Yeah. So I always go by, this is the solution I would want. Yeah. And then also, I think like...

Is it going to, like, how much is it going to hurt us to just fix this for them? Like, what's the, you know, the... Cost benefit, whatever they call it. Yeah, something like that. There's probably some business speak for it. But let's keep focused on the question, shall we?

Is the customer always right? Is the customer always right? No, because sometimes customers will, you know, some customers are trying to basically scam you out of things. Some customers are just, they let their emotions take over and maybe accuse you of things that they know are not true. Yeah. So no, they're not actually always right. But I would say that as a business, it's our job to

to resolve it in a way that they feel like they were in the right and it's come out to their satisfaction whatever way that might be well i i mean my my question would be are people always right and the answer to that would be no customers are just people um but i think the saying comes from it's something it's probably a hangover from like the 70s or whatever it is like

From a business perspective, the mindset, that is the right mindset to have because if you ever... If you approach each customer complaint or with... It's usually about complaints, this kind of mindset. With that attitude, you're going to come out better as the business. I think what you're trying to say is, and which is right, there's nothing to be gained by...

arguing with people apart from potentially making them more irate and damaging yourself even more and actually one thing that I've learned I'll see if you you would agree is usually the people that are the most passionate let's say say they've got that fire within them and they have so they take issue with something

are the most likely to become your biggest advocates if you treat them with respect and you treat them well. Yeah, we've definitely had examples of that where someone emailed us initially upset and then we solved their issue and I see them ordering again and again. Happens all the time. Yeah, and that's, like I said earlier, with the cost-benefit-whatever thing. It's like acquiring a customer...

on average a lot more than just refunding someone once. And also, well, I'm going to take the customer's perspective from this. One, I am a Karen quite often. Sometimes, like, as in I will... If someone doesn't meet my expectations, I will go ham sometimes with it. That makes you sound horrible. I've only known for you to message or, like, leave a review for a company maybe, like, twice. Oh, no, I'm not like that. In ten years. I mean, like, if there's a...

if there's like an issue as a business owner because we're customers as well remember like i mean just this morning uh uh we we ordered some labels and only half of them turned up yesterday so i was on live chat this morning being like where's the other half of my order yeah but you weren't like oh you forgot half of my order on purpose and i was super english about it and i was all kind hi excuse me could you please could you please i'm sorry but apologizing yeah but i mean okay that

I think that's just irritating. You might be a bit irritating. We get people sometimes emailing a day after their order has been dispatched, like, hey, I haven't received this yet. When will I get it? And there's nothing wrong with that. And I don't mind just saying, hey, we do our shipping policy. It's usually two to three days. But due to COVID, it can be a bit longer. That's fine. I don't really mind that because people are just excited. It just means they can't wait to receive their products. That's good. So I try and see it as a good thing. Yeah.

Yeah, and also I would say, like, you know, I think it's nice of them to care enough. Yeah, like you said. I had another point, but it flew out of my head, so I basically just repeated what you said. Anyway, so I had my next kind of question is, when do you think there was a turning point, particularly for us, where it started to pick up and there's, like...

And customer service became a little bit more... Yeah. Prevalent in our day-to-day. So I think there was three things that happened. First, when we started selling on Amazon. Yeah, that was a biggie. Because just...

Amazon is just known to be different ballgame. Yeah. But Amazon as a company is known to do amazing customer service in the sense that they side with the customer nine times out of 10, maybe more nine, 9.9 times out of 10. They'll side with the customer. If you ever don't receive something from Amazon, you can file an A to Z claim. You'll get your money back. You just always get your way basically. And we sell on Amazon marketplace at the moment. Um, so you do get, I mean,

I mean, very rarely for us, again, it's like we get such little amount of messages on Amazon for the amount. Considering the way it's shipped. But there was definitely, you know, one or two people, we've mentioned this here before, we had one person actually ordering something and then weeks later messaging saying, hey, I actually just realized I ordered this by accident. Oh, they are cheeky. And we were like, oh, no worries. Do you want to send it back? And they were like, no, I already used it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I just realized.

I ordered it by accident, but I ate it all. But then, you know, we did end up actually refunding them. Well, Amazon's even worse because you're really... Yeah, because they will just go to Amazon and they will refund it on your behalf otherwise. But something I just wanted to quickly say while saying this, because this just sounds like as a business you just need to like...

let people do whatever they want with you and I think there is a bit of a line so we've had someone we've had a few people trying to cancel their order after we already shipped their product so then we didn't say oh yeah just take your money back like I think sometimes it's good to give them a slight barrier because that puts off most people already so we said it's already shipped

Yeah.

I would say that's very rare though. Yeah, like twice, three times maybe. Most people are just like, hey, the postman used my package as a football and it is my smashed bottle.

That's the biggest problem for us. I don't know. I just don't know. I'd love to be a fly on the wall. Yeah. I just don't know what they do with these parcels. But sometimes we get them back returned. Yeah. And we're like, wow. Again, very rarely. But yeah, basically, so that's Amazon. I'm trying not to lose the original questions. When do they start to pick up? Yeah. So another point is COVID because...

In the first lockdown especially, the post was extremely slow. So it could take like two weeks for a parcel. We used to ship second class and that normally would take two working days and it sometimes took two, three weeks. So that was...

inquiries people just like where's my parcel second class yeah second class is not tracked so we also couldn't really say exactly where it was and then also because people weren't used to it because the pandemic was so new um some of them just didn't get it and they were just really upset and said i can't believe you this is the worst customer service ever like how can you not tell me where my parcel is when i'll get it it's been five days i can't like this is terrible um

So that was a bit of a turning point, which looking back now probably would go very different. Because in this lockdown, for example, there have been stretches where stuff is late and I feel like people are a lot more accepting now. Yeah, they are. Because they just weren't used to it before. Yeah. And Royal Mail has done a good job. Yeah, they've been pretty good for this situation. Just the third thing before I forget is actually I wanted to mention...

That when we started using a, like a software for our shipping, that that dramatically decreased the amount of inquiries. Well, you're kind of skipping forward to my next question. Yeah, but that was the three, that was basically the three moments where it either, where I noticed a difference. It changed. Yeah, it changed. Well, that's a nice segue then. I guess that's what I call it. If I was like, I'm pretty much Louis Theroux at this point. I'm like interviewing people. What, if you had any tips for...

For people operating. I have a little burp there. Have you got any tips? If you've got any tips. I don't even have my English anymore. Do you have any tips? Have I got tips for you? For business owners. Let's go with business owners for now.

If you were going to talk with other businesses, tell them how to do a good job, what would you say? Yeah, so give the customer as much information as you can. So one of the things we didn't used to have is a little piece of software that we have now that basically sends the customer the parcel number automatically when we dispatch. So this is not something Shopify can plug into, like, click and drop natively, I don't think.

And we still ship. So we now ship the business version of second class, which is called Royal Mail 48. But it's exactly the same thing, just looks fancier. But before that, we used to just use second class parcel.

And they do come with a delivery confirmation. So once the parcel either is attempted for delivery or is delivered, the number will update and people can see and they can book a re-delivery. But we used to not be able to give the customer that number unless they asked for it. And that's because there was just no program that sunk automatically.

with Shopify that we like had. So we would have had to like either download the CSV from drop and go, which we used to use and then try and upload it somewhere or just manually enter it in every single transaction. And at the time we were shipping maybe five or 600 via Shopify a month. And that was just not viable to do that because also 90% of parcels just arrived kind of fine.

But that just meant that a lot of people would just inquire and then we had to manually search their postcode, find the number, send them the number, explain to them how to book a re-delivery, all that kind of thing. So when we started using Zen Stores...

Yeah. Which is that thing that we have a subscription to now. You can sign up to Zen Schools with our promotional code. Using our code. I wish I had a code. Don't have a code. Yeah, we're not anywhere near important enough to have sponsors. Yeah, sorry, guys. This is just a genuine thing that is working for us. It might not be the best thing for you, but, you know, give it a go. But basically, you just connect all of your channels to this channel.

What is it? It's like an interface, whatever you want to call it. It's like, yeah, it's like a, I guess it pulls all your different channels together. Yeah, and you can plug it in with Royal Mail OBA, which is the online business account, Royal Mail, like when you get invoices and stuff from Royal Mail, it all plugs in there. But the amazing thing it does is that it automatically sends tracking numbers and also parcel numbers, which are not tracking numbers, and automatically puts them in the Shopify inbox.

Order. So the customer gets an email. Has access to it. Yes. So the amount of people asking where their parcel is has dramatically decreased because people know the number. Yeah. And it does say when they put the number in, this number will update once delivery is attempted or completed. So it just eradicates so much of those. Just where's my parcel email. So I guess that's a good... I guess what you're saying is don't be frustrated with your customer's

Not solely because you need to make sure that you have a responsibility to give them as much information as you can so that they don't have to ask you things. Yeah, just I think when we got that, like, again, we didn't get that many. We might have got like 10, 15 a week, which is a lot more than we get now. But at the time, it felt enough like it was a problem to enough people that we had to solve it. Yeah, which we did. So that was it. One of them is...

shipping integration uh

Any other top tips for people and businesses in dealing with their customers? Just try... I mean, this is just from my perspective. So with our company, I deal with most of the customer inquiries just naturally because I don't know, I just feel like... Well, that's just happened. Originally, I was going to take Amazon and you were going to take the other stuff, but you are so... Control free. Like you said at the top of the episode, you are so...

You're not a control freak, but you're so affected by it. Yeah. Whereas I'm just like, oh, that's coming. I'm still working on that. You're like, you take it very personally. So I was just like, you just do it. Because you were already harassing me to get on the computer within two minutes to respond. Even though Amazon gives you 24 hours. Which is the right thing, to be fair, because I, as a customer of other people...

always really appreciate a prompt response and I could if I had a penny for every time someone said thanks for getting back so quickly I'd be a rich man um I think it's really important but that is how naturally you became the yeah but my advice would actually be to try and not be so emotionally charged well I think there's the two sides I think it's a good decision business wise because people do appreciate a prompt response especially in these times of instant messaging but

Or for your own mental health, sometimes maybe it's best to not take it so personally. Yeah, and I think as your company grows and you get more inquiries, you can't constantly feel nervous because you're going to get them a few times a day and I can't spend all my day worrying about what people think or if they're going to be like...

You know, in my head, I always think that obviously this customer just thinks about this issue for the whole of their day when probably they're not actually that bothered. They just send this email slightly angry and then they just go about their day and then check their email the next day and then hope it's resolved. So this is just me kind of being overly...

And I get a real kick out of solving people's issues. So probably, I don't know if you want me to tell the story now, but probably one of the worst things for me is when I can't solve someone's issue because, for example, we had this one person on Amazon who ordered from us. And then we got a message from them just saying, where's my order? Yeah.

And I could see in the parcel number update that it was delivered, I think, to a neighbor or something like I could clearly see it. So I replied to a message saying, hey, you know, this is the number. Actually, it says it was delivered to your neighbor. Can you maybe just check with them? Let me know. And then the message bounced. And it's just Amazon saying, hey, this person's inbox is full or like their email doesn't exist.

And Amazon's policy is you can't contact them through their phone number. That's just against Amazon policy. But also they didn't even have a phone number in there, I think. So basically we couldn't even, like I couldn't even tell her that her order actually did arrive. And obviously we refunded her. But then the worry is that they send us a message and then we just reply in their eyes with a refund. Right.

And they never get a passive. Yeah, it looks like I'm just taking money. I don't even don't even bother replying to a message. And so that kind of that stuff upsets me because I, you know, I just want to let them know either solve it by saying it's with your neighbor or at least say, hi, I've refunded you. Sorry, you didn't get it.

But I could do neither of those things. Nothing ever happened with that. Like, I never... I don't think she ever left a review or anything. But stuff like that just mortifies me. You know now you've said that you're going to wake up tonight and be like... Yeah, it's always on the weekend. It's Sunday mornings, usually. We get, like, two in a row. Sunday is peak time. Peak time for...

People just kind of laying around and going, yeah, what has happened to that pizza seasoning that I ordered? Where is that? Fuck those guys. I'm going to send them a message. There was one other incident I'll quickly tell as well where we got an order from someone and we used to use drop and go at the time where you just drop it off at the post office. And we got a call from a post office saying, hey, this address is incomplete. We can't ship this.

And then again, I went and sent them an email because they only gave an email address and said, hey, you know, you might have forgotten your like part of your address. The post office won't ship it. Can you please let me know your address? And then I think it was a company email or something. And immediately it bounced just saying this person no longer works here or something. And again, you can't contact them. Loads of people seem to use emails that they just don't have any more old work emails to order things from.

So, yeah. You're a bit of a stalker, aren't you, Jen? Yeah, I mean... A little bit of a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. Basically, what I did is I found them on LinkedIn. Again, I don't know if this is what you're meant to do, but I sent them a friend request and they accepted it. And in the friend request, I just said, hey...

are you by any chance this person that ordered from this business if not please just ignore it and delete this request really really sorry but if you are um just have a question about your order and she accepted the same day and just said hey yeah that's me what's up and I said hey your address is incomplete and she was really happy she's like I'm so happy you found me this is the rest of my address please send my order so that obviously came out good but like yeah

Doesn't always work. Doesn't always work. But it's good, I think, you know, going above and beyond. I feel like I did it more for me in a way because I just really wanted to solve it. But, yeah. Take another drink. I saw you reaching for it. That's good. So we've talked a little bit about...

bad experiences with customers. What about one of your best ones? Let's get a bit positive. Let's get some posi vibes going on in here. See, I think this is the same as for customers. So when customers are happy, you don't usually hear from them. So the amount of reviews and things we get relative to the amount we sell is pretty low. Because when someone's happy, they don't usually feel inclined to say something. They don't, but let's...

But you have, have you or have you not created a folder this week with positive feedback? So give me some good customer interactions you've had. Well, we get a lot of good... Is there anything that's stuck in your mind as one of the top ones of people that have...

have been really thankful. There's a couple that spring to mind of mine. I mean, you go ahead. I mean, it's just on social we get so much amazing comments, especially on our ads or just generally posts. Yeah. So I'm thinking, oh, I don't want to name check. I don't know if that's fair enough. But there was one lady, I believe, that commented on one of the ads and did a long story, didn't she, about how she's followed us since like April or something, last April. And we're, it might not be a woman actually.

It doesn't matter. Someone. Someone. A great person. And saying that they've been addicted and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, enough. Which is nice. Amazing to read. It's nice to read. But have there been any other positive customer interactions? Oh, there's one I thought of. A customer of ours reached out to us a couple of weeks ago saying that they'd been hitting up podcasts, other podcasts about us.

And that they wanted to spread the good word because they liked the brand. Someone who was local. That was a really nice thing to do. Yeah, just people just thinking of us when they don't have to. It was just amazing. Yeah, you know, someone taking time out. Yeah.

What else have people... Is there anything else? I mean, sometimes the best interactions come out of an initial, in inverted commas, complaint email. Like we had that one email recently where someone very politely emailed us and said, hey, I ordered the seasoning gift set and one of them sadly arrived broken. Please...

can you solve this? And then we send her a replacement, obviously. I think we sent her a different one than she ordered because she had accidentally ordered the wrong thing. So I just changed it out for what she actually wanted. And then a week or two later, she just sent this really quite long email just saying, I was amazed with your customer service. I received it after only three days and my son absolutely loves it. Giving me stories. I think that's what I love, yeah. I think I love that. Sorry, I cut in there a little bit, but I think...

I love when you get these little glimpses into people's lives. And I think it's very easy to get siloed into your own little world as a business thinking, you know, like just we're doing this, looking at the numbers, I'm making stuff, I'm sending it out. It's very easy to forget that real people are actually receiving this and they're actually using it in their day-to-day lives, in their cooking lives.

Like actually, literally just before this call, the lady was DMing us on Facebook saying that she'd been using the pizza seasoning with everything and it was amazing. And I think it's very easy to forget that real people use this and it does actually positively impact their lives, even if it's just in a small way.

And I think that's really cool. So I think it's good to remember that as well as some of the more challenging things. Oh, definitely. And you need to try and almost hype yourself up because the reaction I have to an inquiry that might be like, where's my parcel, is much more...

I don't want to say violent, but it's like much greater. Like my physical and mental reaction to it is much greater than getting a positive comment, even though I should be just as elated about that. I should be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But in a way, you just read it and it just kind of... You're just like, oh, yeah, that's great. But then next thing... I think it's because you take it personally. Yeah, which you shouldn't. Well, you should. I disagree. I think you should. I think...

Not take it personally and then react and get really kick off at someone. But I think it's important for us to be invested because we care. We spend seven days a week. Is that Tate snoring? Yeah. We spend seven days a week thinking about this. And when you do, that...

It's only natural that it's going to affect you when someone criticises it. And I think if you lose that, and what is it that I always say to you when you talk about customer service? What is it that you always say? You talk about the fact that because it affects you emotionally, you'd like to have someone else do it. Oh yeah, I always say I would like to outsource it one day. And what do I say? You always say no.

I say it's a bit more finessed than that. I say that it's the last thing that we should outsource for that exact reason. Because we care.

Yeah, I mean, it's double edged. I would have really big trouble outsourcing it just because I have trouble trusting someone to do it right and care about it. But at the same time, it's more it's more egoistic for me because egotistical, I don't know the word. But it's just because it it does like mentally kind of get me down to a degree where I don't think it's healthy. And that's my problem. Like that's no one else's problem.

But I'm just a bit of a snowflake apparently when it comes to that kind of stuff. So sometimes I feel like I should just not be doing it because I can react too emotionally, even though I will never send the email that I first draft where I am emotional. Okay. Well, on that, let me just readjust myself a little bit. That leads me into another question. If you were going to deliver a speech to the average person,

like customer that likes to complain, what would you say? If you were going to try and explain to them how you feel, if you were going to give a monologue to this person that you mentioned before that was kind of being cheeky, what is it that you would say and what things do you think it's important for the average like customer to

The customer that buys things online to know. Well, I honestly don't think I would say anything just because I feel like the kind of person that, you know, is like the typical Karen person. Right, okay. Doesn't, you know, that's just how they base it on their own experiences. This is working for them. I don't think anything I'll say... Let's lean into this, though. Obviously, in real life, you're not going to say this, but if you could...

Give them this knowledge. What would you want them to know? You want me to basically say my first draft email? Is that what you want? Well, not necessarily your first draft email, but what would you want them to understand about our side as the business owner? Well, obviously I would like them to know that it's not in our best interest to do anything that...

they like to do anything that they would not be happy with. So like, as like some of them come at us, I feel like they're trying to say, Oh, you did this on purpose. Like you sent me the wrong thing. Like, how could you? It's like, why would I want to do that? Like, I'm literally, I live and die by the service I provide. So I obviously I'm trying to make you happy and I'm trying to reason with you. Um, this business I've literally put like years into, um, I'm out,

I'm working part-time on it now. I'm hoping to work on it full-time one day. This is like my baby. I'm really proud of it. Yeah, probably that. That's awesome. Anything else you'd want them to know? There would probably be more, but I'm not sure I can think of it right now. That's fine. I think that's really good. All right, Mr Therapist. Hey, look, I told you at the top of the podcast that that was what I was...

That's the path I was going to go down. I honestly think, though, that some people put on a persona when they talk on email. Like, if they want to complain about something. Like, there was one person recently who messaged, and already there's, like, no hello. It's just, like...

I received this, but I wanted this. And I looked into it and I looked at their order and they received what they ordered. So I went, I was just like, hey, sorry, I just checked this order. And according to your order, this is actually what you ordered. And then again, they came back, no hello, no thanks. Just saying, yeah, but that's not what I meant to order. Your website's obviously broken.

And then I came back saying, hey, sorry. Again, sorry is something, again, that I shouldn't be saying as much in these emails, I feel, but that's a different issue. So I said, like, hey, sorry, I'm trying to, like, find a solution here for you. What would be your perfect outcome? Like, how can I help you? Yeah. And she just said, oh, I don't know. I can send it back, but, like, your website's broken, so you should fix it. Yeah. And I just, you know, that's when I had to take a step back and I was just like, look,

This person most likely accidentally ordered something they didn't mean to order. Now they're embarrassed. Yeah. And maybe in their mind they do think that it's the website messing up, which is a very small possibility as well, right? It's unlikely, but it could be right. And just the fact that I'm reading their emails to be passive aggressive might just be the way that they write emails. I was just basically in my head, I was like, right,

what's the worst thing that can happen here? They never buy from us again and they'll badmouth us somewhere. And that's not what I want. So I was like, right, I can just make them happy and send them what they actually meant to receive. So I went like, hey, would it make you happy if we just sent you what you intended to receive? And they weren't happy with that. And I let them keep the other thing. And that was it. And in a way, you can think of it like a loss for us, but I think it's actually a win for

So I felt good about it because I was like, right, I could have, you know, it could have been a long winded thing and it would have made them more upset. It would have made me more upset. So I was like, right, I'll just do what they want.

they might stay accustomed. This has been a few weeks ago now and at the time it did kind of, you know, I was like, because it's happened before that people have messaged and said, hey, like, I didn't, I received this and I meant to order this. But then I had someone the other day saying, hey, I just fucked, like, I messed up. I ordered the wrong thing. Can I return this? Because that's not what I meant to order. And I'm much more inclined to help if they just own up to it. So if someone says, hey, I'm really, really sorry, like, I

I made a mistake. I did the same thing for them. I just sent them what they actually wanted. Let them keep it. It's the same thing. It's just as a business. You do think, you do think when you get that, that kind of message, like the, the, the wrong people kicking off about the wrong thing. It's like our website is literally bought and shop like built on Shopify unless the entire system is wrong.

you put the wrong thing like i mean yeah you have to double verify because it shows you what you put in your gift set and then you get an email again that details what's in your gift set but a lot of people don't read their order confirmations which is fine again it's it's not actually that it happened i'm angry about that can happen to anyone and even if it was like let's just say that this person to the best of their knowledge really believe that our website is

is broken. And they're angry about it because they're 100% sure they've put the right thing in the basket. They're 100% sure they've checked out the right thing. And then they open the box excited to get what they wanted and it's not right. Yeah. So I'm trying to see it like that. And I was like, they're just really upset and they're angry. To be fair, we've all been there. Or at least I have several times where I've been like, you've got this wrong. And then I've realized that I was the one who made the mistake.

But there's one thing that I will do. If I realise I'm the one that's made the mistake, I will admit it and say, you know what, I've been an idiot. I'm sorry that I made you feel bad. Yeah, but let's say this happened to you to a big business, like, let's say, I don't know, just random Ikea. Let's just say that you aggressively complained to someone at Ikea because something's missing from your bed frame.

Because there's about a million children in the store. No, when you order something and then you call them up and say, hey, you've got a missing wheel on this thing and it's upsetting and you did it wrong and then you find the wheel the next day and it was hidden. But then, because it's a company, you're unlikely to call again and go, hey...

Whoever I talked to yesterday, I'm really sorry. That is true. That is true. They're just like, yeah, we're sorry for that now. As in you talked to one of our million customers. Yeah, and in your head, you're just probably not as likely to want to apologize to IKEA because they're a company. And I mean, we're a small company, but again, a lot of our customers don't realize that it's just us. That's very true. And they talk to us about like where our warehouse is and they think we're really big. So maybe to them, they just try and talk a bit more about

aggressively to get what they want because that's what a lot of people do and basically i'm just i'm just really working on trying to not get offended by something like by what they say sometimes i'm trying to put myself in their shoes always and you know i i'm getting slightly better slowly okay that's good well that segues again nicely into one of my um later questions so um

What do you think the future of our customer service is going to look like? That's a good question. I mean, at the moment, it hasn't really changed much. We haven't really had a growth of customer service inquiries for a while. It's been pretty steady at most weeks, maybe one or two. So it's not really enough to even call it work at this point because most of the emails just require one quick reply from

Most of them are like, hey, how long is your shipping usually? And I just link them to our shipping policy and that's it. So the ones where you actually have to go in and maybe do some detective work on where their parcel is because maybe the delivery office lost it or whatever, those are very rare. But in the future, okay, so say... Yeah, so say it does grow. It grows, how would you want that to be? I mean, I'd probably...

I would like to set aside a scheduled time of the day. So stop replying immediately, because at the moment, even if an inquiry comes at 4am and I happen to see it, I'm really bad and I'll just reply. But... Do you think... I mean, I don't know the answer. Do you think that's the best way, the reasonable considering people's expectations nowadays? I think 24 hours is fair enough. Me as a customer, when I message a company...

I'm happy if they reply within a day. I messaged Co-op yesterday asking where the hell... I said it exactly like that. Where the hell is my favourite ice cream? And I said, hi there. I haven't seen this ice cream in shop for a while. Can you tell me where it was? It's true, actually. Oh, God.

I think it took them about six, seven hours. Still not over that. Yeah. Basically, co-op discontinued our favourite ice cream. But yeah, I asked them yesterday and they replied within six, seven hours. They're dead to me. They're literally dead to me. And I was really happy with that time, but it would have also been fine if they had taken until the next day. Like for me, 24 hours is like... I don't know, man. That was an ice cream emergency. Yeah. Very sad. R.I.P. But yeah, I think 24 hours is fine. Also, it's not sustainable to just constantly be on call. Of course not.

So you think you'd have a time of day. Yeah, I think... What about when it got too big for a time of day? Well, by that point, I probably would, I'll sort of say, even though you don't want me to, but I think it's just something that when you give...

give someone like the rules in inverted commas, like say like, oh, when something like this happens, this is our company reaction. This is how we solve this. And then, you know, they can always escalate it to, oh, I hate that word. You know, it's like bring it to me if it was like something that's never happened. I'll ask my supervisor. Yeah, something like that. But basically, I think customer service is pretty easy to like delegate because you can have templates and

even though I really hate getting one of those robot templates but like just easy like hello thank you for your email whatever and then just you know look up on this website where their parcel is solving like that I think that's pretty that's one of the easiest things to delegate you know some of the best places that I find for customer service are actually Shopify apps and again this isn't sponsored by a shop Shopify masters it's not it's not that um I uh

And when I've used apps on Shopify, because they live and die by their Shopify reviews, they're really, really good. And I'm sure they do have teams doing it, but they're really quick and they're always really attentive. So I think you're right. You can outsource, but you need to make sure that the people that you're getting to do the customer service understand how important it is. Because that's what a lot of companies get wrong, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think, I mean, ideally outsource it to one of our friends or something because it could be like, you could do customer service. Really? Our friends? Yeah. How about that? I have a few people in mind, but it's just the perfect flexible work. It's like just set aside one hour a day, don't care what time, and just get through all of these emails. Okay. And then get paid. But anyway, I mean, that's far in the future at the moment. It's only about 10 minutes a week worth of customers. Oh, yeah.

Okay. Anyone looking for 10 minutes of wig work? So, you know, this has come nicely full circle. I feel like we've discussed our side. I feel like we've discussed the customer's side. Yes, we have. But there's actually one other thing I wanted to... Okay. I have to get off my chest. Okay. Right, Jen. Go on then. Okay. Here we go. Before we stop this, I did have to quickly talk about our worst ever...

ever customer incident. Yeah, I asked about this earlier. Why didn't you drop it in there? I don't know. I just felt it was too long-winded to talk about it. All right, go on. Hit us with it. Right, so Shopify...

Oh, yeah. I know the one. Yeah, you know. Okay. So on Shopify, when you get an order, there's a little thing that tells you how high or low the fraud risk is on a transaction. And I think we've had thousands of orders on Shopify and we've only ever had one or two with a high risk and only ever one or two with a medium risk. Anyway, this order had a low risk and it came to us just after Christmas, I believe, last year.

And it was an order from a European country. I will not name the country. It doesn't matter. And yeah, this was obviously just before Brexit. And it was also at the time where the borders closed briefly because of COVID. I don't know if anyone remembers this, but...

Just between that and New Year's, the borders closed for like three or four days and Royal Mail would not accept parcels going out of the UK. So this order came just as that was happening. So I emailed this person saying, hey, our borders are closed. Really, really sorry. Do you want me to refund you now? The order was for about £30 and we charged them, I believe, £25 shipping because it was over two kilos. So that would have been a courier. And normally that costs like £19, £20.

Yeah. Something like that. Cool. So I emailed them and they replied pretty quickly just saying, hey, no worries. Like, I'm happy to wait. So we were like, cool. I'll send it whenever the borders open. So the borders opened on like the 29th or something. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

And I think we looked online trying to book this on a courier and the prices were just mental. So it was like UPS was the only option and it was £40, I think. So immediately we were losing 15 quid. But also it needed so much paperwork that it took us until January the 2nd or 3rd to actually get it picked up from our house. Mm-hmm.

Right. So already resigned to the fact we weren't making any money on this. But fine. I just wanted to get it out because this person's been really nice and they waited and, you know, they ordered it all the way to their country in the EU. Cool. So UPS picks up this parcel. Now Brexit obviously has happened. So it needs like loads of declarations, commercial invoice, loads of stuff.

But all good. It's on the way. Tracking looks great. It's already in the destination country. And I'm like, amazing, this is working out. Cool Brexit, not as bad as I thought. Amazing. And then I get an email. I think the day later, the day after it got picked up, it was already in the country. This person just emailed saying, hey...

I just got a text from my local postal service saying that I need to pay $18 to release this parcel. I don't want to pay this. I looked it up and I thought if I ordered before Brexit, then I don't have to pay anything.

And I was mortified. I was like, oh, don't worry about it. We'll pay for it. Like, don't worry. And I partially refunded their order to the amount of $18. Yeah. And I just messaged, hey, I just refunded you this money. Like, just use that money and pay for it. We'll pay for it. Don't worry about it. Already made no money on the order. So I was like, might as well just get it to them. Cool. I thought that was it. That's solved. It's now gonna... They paid for it. They release it. They get it. We paid extra for doorstep delivery. It's like an extra five quid or something. Yeah. Cool. And then...

then i love by the way i just love i love the theatricality in this anyway i completely in my head thought amazing we solved it like we went above and beyond for this person paid for the import fee whatever great next day wake up shopify a chargeback was filed against you for fraud and it was this person

And I was like, what? Fraud. Fraud? What fraud? And then I looked at the tracking of the UPS parcel and it said, the receiver refused the parcel at the door saying they did not order anything. I was like, what? So I emailed this person because obviously we talked before on email and they were really nice. I was like, hey, person, person, just got this charge back. Like, what is this about? Can we settle this? Just want to like sort this out. Just want to make sure you receive your goods, whatever. Yeah.

ghost it never never heard from them again so on shopify you then get the option to like defend yourself but first what they do is they take the entire order value plus shipping plus a fee off you so even though we already refunded this person a bit of money they took the entire order money yeah plus a fee immediately from our account so that's just gone and sitting somewhere

Cool. So then I spent like an hour writing a defense and getting screenshots of like, hey, we had contact with this person. This is the UPS invoice. This is like the tracking. This is the fraud analysis from Shopify saying this is not fraud. This is them literally telling us they want to wait for the order because they really wanted. They clearly ordered this. The IP address is literally from like within one kilometer of their location, whatever. Everything was just pointing to the fact that no fraud had occurred, obviously. Yeah.

And then what happened this morning? So first of all, it takes ages. It took, I think, 90 days before they actually submit your defence after you file it. And then once they file it, it takes up to another 70 days for the bank, because it goes to the person's bank and the bank decides. It takes another 70 days for them to look at it and actually make a decision.

Right, so this morning I got an email that just said, your chargeback has been resolved and the bank has sided with the customer. Yeah. And that's just the kind of moment when you just think, how on earth does this work? But then I went on the internet and apparently 99% of Shopify chargebacks side with customers, no matter what happens, which is really scary. Back to the top of the podcast, who's always right?

Yeah. Not this person. I'm just upset because... The bank doesn't want to deal with that Karen, even though it was a man. I'm upset about two things. First of all, the fact that I talked to this person and they were really nice and I just tried... I feel I tried my best to make their life the easiest. I can't even remember the other reason now. I was upset for two reasons. I also think it's an important distinction that this was a man as well because...

I think a lot of the stereotype is that it's like women that go to these lengths to be... Yeah, well, the Karen meme is literally a woman. Yeah, but it doesn't matter that it's a woman. It's just anyone can be a Karen. Yeah, but the fact that it was a woman is... All right, well, yeah, this was... Jen, I'm being a feminist here. Step aside. And I think it's an important distinction. This was a man, so that's...

That meme is wrong. This was a guy who was going full Karen. Um...

But yeah, so I guess what's the moral of that story? I think... I feel like that's taken us full circle actually really nicely to is the customer always right? Do you have any parting thoughts or comments? I wouldn't call this a customer. I feel like there was intent there because... Oh yeah, this is the second reason why I was upset because they filed a charge back not for non-receival of goods or something else. They charged it for fraud. Fraudulent activity. Fraudulent activity. Yeah. Fraudulent activity.

Just, I don't know. Suggesting that we're like con people that...

Apparently our grift is to send people stuff for free. Oh yeah, I also forgot to say, so they refused this parcel, so I got in contact with UPS saying, hey, can we have this parcel back? And they were like, sure, we can send it back. It costs you £42 to send it back. Yeah, it got destroyed. Yeah, it got destroyed in the end. So, I don't know, just this whole thing was just one after the other. I was just like, how can it get worse? Basically, it cost us £100 and we got our source...

We paid £100 to destroy our source. In a European country, yeah. It was great. That's it. That's living. That's living, that is. Sending your parcels to Europe and paying £100 for them to be destroyed. Yeah, but I don't know what the lesson is from this because it actually scares me how easy it is for people to scam small businesses. I mean, I guess... I don't really know. From what I read, it's just a bit of a...

an issue that's like put under the rug because anyone with a credit card just it is terrible don't do that i mean if you're listening to this podcast you're probably a decent person but don't do that that's yeah it's horrible and again it's one of those things that i thought about way too much this occupied my brain way way too yeah

I saw that this morning when I was in bed at like 7 o'clock. Oh no. And I was like, oh, Jen's going to love that. Yeah. I mean, I kind of thought this was going to happen, but I had a really good defence. I mean, I edited together in Photoshop all of the receipts. I had a proper thing. It was good. I wrote it all out in like proper language. Yeah, it didn't work. Well, yeah.

You know, this is our only, first and only ever chargeback. So, you know, fingers crossed, touch wood that just by talking about this, we're not going to get one tomorrow now. Just out of nowhere. Please. But yeah, we're really fortunate. And to be honest, you win some, you lose some, I guess.

yeah that's that's that's probably customer service it's just you have to cut your losses sometimes you do i feel like that's it so that's a good bit of wisdom so so what's your parting wisdom both for both for business owners and for customers what do you want to leave them remember that it's humans on both ends yeah because i think that's very yeah that's that would be my biggest one like you're dealing with someone that also has like feelings and things going on in their life and

A bit of kindness goes a long way. A high end thanks goes a long way sometimes too. And yeah, I think that might be the singular best thing I can say. You know what, Gin? I think that's a pretty good way to leave it.

So, well, I guess, guys, thank you very much for listening to this. Thank you for listening to me rant for however many minutes. I feel like this episode was just like for me to just tell someone. I feel like you needed it and I think it was good. Yeah. Most of our customers are awesome. 99.9% are literally awesome. Like definitely go to the pub with them. They're that awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

But thanks for listening. Thank you. And giving us the time of day. I know there's millions of podcasts out there you could be listening to. And you're listening to this one. And there's only one last thing. One last thing to say. Cue. Jiggle.