Retail, in the eyes of the everyday customer

Retailers pay a lot of attention to store walk-ins; in fact they can rightfully claim to be experts. But they don’t know diddly squat about customer service. An example. Through I steer clear of the Valentines Day scam this year I decided to get something from RedEnvelope. Click click and I was at the shipping options page (this was turning out to be easier than I thought). The system presented 3 options, slow shipping, quick shipping and delivery on Valentines Day. I clicked option 3. Obviously. Imagine my shock when last night (on the 13^th) I get my ‘thank you for the lovely gift’ call. I paid RedEnvelope 90% more (for shipping) to do just one thing and they screwed that up. Why spend 6 bucks on customer acquisition when service is so bad that customers have no incentive to return?

I’m not much of a gift giver but when I do end up gifting I like to make it as personalized as possible. For Valentines Day I bought love ‘fortune cookies’ from redenvelope.com which I thought were very cute. I would have liked it even better if I could have attached a handwritten note with the gift, something to show the gift was beyond the convenience of online shopping. If RedEnvelope presented an option for me to write a note, scan and upload it it would have made the buying experience that much more special.