I received an offer today from Pinnacle Systems via email to pre-order their new Video Transfer product. It looked worth trying so I clicked through to their shopping cart. The price was good but the free shipping, upon investigation, was described as 7 to 10 working days. That’s upwards of two calendar weeks! If I upgraded to UPS shipping (5 working days max), it would cost another $10.
Given that UPS ground is the slowest shipping that I am aware of, I abandoned the shopping cart and tried to send them an email to explain why I decided not to order. There was no email address so the first obstacle I had to cross was a series of dropdowns to define the nature of my correspondence. I played along until I discovered that there was no dropdown for “Why do you apparently ship via some guy on a bicycle?” Since they didn’t have a generic category, I was forced to choose the closest scenario I could find, “How do I change my shipping choice?”
They gave me 2,000 characters to vent my discontent. I explained that I could buy their product after it is released from Amazon and get free two-day shipping which would probably arrive before their guy on the bike.
Insult on to injury came when I get an email, about 30 minutes later, saying that this is an automated message and, no, you cannot change you method of shipping. Lots of expletives here! Have we finally arrived at 1984? Or is it 2000 and I must I ask Hal for permission to speak? Aren’t there any humans out there anymore? I hope their computer enjoyed my pithy and somewhat sarcastic 2,000 characters. At this point, “Billy” in India is looking pretty good.
Pinnacle doesn’t have a lock on this practice. A colleague just yesterday expressed his frustration in dealing with Amazon. He was trying to get some questions answered regarding their B2B drop shipping services. For several days he struggled via email, the only offered method of communicating, without getting a complete set of answers. Finally, in desperation, he sent an email saying, “We could resolve this in 15 minutes if you would just call me.” The phone rang minutes later and the issue was promptly resolved.
When a client goes out of their way to proactively communicate, you shouldn’t build moats around your ability to listen. Otherwise, you are just Tuned Out.
