Okay, my faith in humanity is in an ebb stage…
Here’s the situation:
*A customer places an order with me (for an item priced a little
over $200)
*I ship the package through UPS
*UPS looses the package in the “Out for Delivery” phase, and ends up
instructing me to file a claim
*I offer to send the customer a substitute item (an
equivalently-valued item)
*I file a claim with UPS, UPS pays the claim
*I find out a couple of weeks after UPS pays the claim that they
found and delivered the package to the customer–so now the customer
has two pieces of my jewelry, only one of which she technically has
paid for
*I contact the customer to see if she’d be willing to return the
substitute item, and she now refuses to respond (this, after being
all over me when the initial package disappeared due to UPS’
incompetence…)
/[Fun-House Moment: As a bit of a social experiment, seeing as to how
the woman is a proud religious person and all (did a little bit
o’research on The Internets), I sent her an email saying that UPS
wouldn’t pay my claim request because they found the item before the
process was completed–still, crickets…]/
My big mistake is that I offered the customer a discount and only
insured the item with UPS for the discounted price, not the full
price–a mistake that I won’t make again. More than that, though, I
guess I’m a little salty that the lady didn’t have the decency to
shoot me an email to at least let me know that the original item
finally arrived /and/or/ ask me what I wanted her to do with the
substitute item–after all of the time I spent on the phone with UPS
up in their butts about losing it to begin with–on both her behalf
and mine. --And I was in touch with her throughout, making sure she
knew what was going on. With all of the talk about “building
relationships with your customers,” I’m a relationships kind of gal,
and it had begun to feel as if I was building a relationship with my
customer throughout all of this. I guess not.
On the other hand, would I have given the claim pay-out back to UPS
for all of the time and energy I spent nursing their screw-up, given
that they almost cost me both a sale and a customer (not that I’d
ever want HER to purchase from me again, at this point…)? I’d be
inclined to say no. At a minimum, the claim is reimbursement for the
frustration I experienced with them losing the darned thing to begin
with, as well as my valuable time spent away from my work going back
and forth with them.
So, I guess most of what I’m wondering is–who owns the substitute
piece? The customer certainly did not pay for it. I only offered it
to her to replace the original item which she now has. Is it worth
pursuing, or do I just let Karma have at her at this point? [My
husband thinks I should “detach” and just let it go as part of the
risk of doing business. However, I still find that I’m a little
miffed because it’s my “blood, sweat and tears” here–each of the
items is one of a kind and not some manufactured pieces of which I
have a-gazillion sitting around.]
Thoughts?
Oh, and seemingly silly question–are the only shipping options we
have (in the US) USPS, UPS and FedEx? I will NEVER use UPS again to
ship any of my packages. If I have to bypass them and travel extra
distance to seek out another option, I will. They’ve failed me
before, but this is the last straw. I am done with them (even if that
means it’s back to using USPS… drat!).
Tamra Gentry