Lynn’s eBay Ezine Volume VI, Issue Number 1

To back up her claim, she says that the box only weighs five pounds but that on the UPS label we claim that it weighs ten pounds, so she knows that her dinnerware did not get sent to her.

Carmen remembers shipping the entire set of six plates and four c/s sets, and in fact, everything in this pattern is missing from the original shelf where it was stored.

What to do now? Here is how we deal with these types of problems.

1.     Kill them with Kindness

Because eBay is all web-based, we never actually get to meet or talk to our customers. We think that this is one of the big reasons that customers can come across as being rude. They are “faceless” to us and we are “faceless” to them. This is why it is important to try my first step in the process and “Kill them with kindness.”

My grandmother always said, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar” and she is right! The first thing we do is email the customer and be overly nice. Here is a sample email;

Dear Betty,

We are so sorry that your order appears to be incomplete. We do remember packing all of your dishes and we have nothing in this pattern left in the office. Would you do us a BIG favor and go through the box again? Oftentimes, the missing pieces get lost in all the packing peanuts we use to insure the safe arrival of your items.

Thanks so much for your business and sorry for any inconvenience.

Lynn

Then we wait for them to respond.

If their response comes back and our original email didn’t work, we request their user ID information and actually call them.

This is a great part of “Killing them with kindness.” Most customers are SHOCKED to actually receive a phone call about their order.

Here is a link on eBay to where you can request a user’s contact information.

Once I have their phone number, I will call them and go over the problem with them by phone. More times than not, they won’t answer and I end up leaving a message.

Once we have tried by email and phone, with still no resolution, we move on to step number two.

2.     Offer a Partial Refund

Offering a partial refund works wonders. This can really keep your return costs down and make your customers very happy.

When someone is not satisfied with their purchase, or we have shipped the wrong item, or part of a shipment arrives damaged, here is the type of email we send.

Dear Betty,

We are so sorry that your item arrived damaged. Would a partial refund help? Please let us know how much of a refund would make you happy.

Thanks for your business, sorry again and thanks for understanding.

Lynn

Asking them to name the price also keeps the cost down as most people will be embarrassed to ask for too much.

If your customer doesn’t go for the partial refund and expects a full refund, and it really doesn’t warrant a full refund, ask them to return everything by mail to receive that refund.

I can’t stand it when a customer thinks that just because a tiny part of the order was wrong, or something broke in shipping, they should get everything for free. This happened to us recently with some rooster bowls (that I listed during Live Boot Camp 2009). There were 3 Williams Sonoma Rooster Pasta Bowls in the order that had sold for $9.99 each–a bargain.

Here is one of those bowls.