While it is a fact worthy of resentment in today’s so-called "age of the customer," it is a fact nonetheless. Many brands have not yet reached a point at which they can declare they know their customers.
They might have loose audience demographic information, they might even know about a specific customer’s purchasing patterns, but rarely do businesses know how to anticipate a customer’s emotional and commercial reactions to their initiatives.
I hate having to excuse that. And with all the buzz surrounding the customer experience, I, hopefully, will soon no longer have to. But for now, a customer expecting a business to truly know him, no matter how valid an expectation in principle, will play as unreasonable.
What I will not excuse, however, is a business that cannot even retroactively identify the details of my transaction.
Whom I will not excuse is Foot Locker.
The Beginnings of a Disaster
Anyone familiar with my Call Center IQ anecdotes knows of my comically awful luck when it comes to customer service. If an interaction can possibly go awry, it will when I am involved.
I should have assumed the worst during my recent Foot Locker order.
Upon submitting an order for two pairs of sneakers last week, I received a note saying the order was submitted for processing and would be confirmed tomorrow. Foot Locker promised to provide an e-mail update when it did go through.
The message seemed weird: something clearly did not process correctly, but insofar as the details of my order all looked correct (the product, credit card number and shipping method were all correct), there was no overt cause for alarm. I assumed that since I placed the order late at night, I would simply need to wait until the next day’s business hours to receive my confirmation.
I was wrong. Hours passed the next day, and I received no update whatsoever. No confirmation that the order was processed. No warning that the order had not gone through. Nothing.
And as the 2PM cutoff for rush delivery approached, I realized I no longer had the luxury of blind faith. I needed to force the issue.
Yes, I, the customer, needed to proactively address a mistake the business seemed to be on the path to making.
Knowledge Gap
A live chat confirmed the worst of my suspicions. Foot Locker dropped the ball. It had not processed my order and was therefore not preparing to ship anything in time for the rush delivery cutoff.
More notably, Foot Locker forgot to tell me that the order did not go through. Instead of alerting a supposedly prized customer to a potential issue, it found more comfort in a seat atop its hands.
According to the chat representative, the order was not processed—and, in fact, cancelled-- due to there being "no payment method selected for the order." His claim was problematic for a few reasons:
1) I did select to pay by credit card. And when I reached the confirmation screen, it reiterated information about the specific card I selected.
2) How would that be possible? Why would the system let me submit my order if it were absent a payment method? And if it did, why wouldn’t it alert me immediately?
3) Before cancelling the order, shouldn’t Foot Locker have contacted me to request the (supposedly) missing credit card information?
4) Shouldn’t Foot Locker have provided me some sort of notification whatsoever? What would have happened if I hadn’t contacted support and simply banked on my order to ship as planned?
As all four represent valid chains of inquisition, all four deserved meaningful answers. If only.
Following his initial "explanation" of the problem, the support representative’s stock response was that he didn’t know.
He didn’t know why the credit card was stripped from my order ("I do not have details as to why the order did not process through the computer correctly."). He didn’t know why I was not alerted to the issue ("Usually an e-mail is sent out to notify the customer when an order is not placed."). He could not offer a good reason why Foot Locker would not allow me to fix the order by providing the supposedly missing information ("You would need to replace the order at this time."). He could not direct me to anyone who would have more information even though this is apparently not a freak issue ("No department will have more details. I am sorry, but the thousands of orders that go through our website, there can be an issue once in a great while."). Despite his awareness that I preferred a web-based channel and that the shipping deadline was imminent, he refused to offer assurance or assistance in making sure the replacement online order went through correctly ("You could also phone in the order at 800-991-6681 if you are worried about the website.").
He failed at customer service.
The real kicker? Later that week, days after my unpleasant chat and days after I placed the replacement order (in fact, only an hour or so before the order was delivered), Foot Locker sent the following email:
n We are contacting you about your recent web order with Foot Locker. Unfortunately we experienced some technical problems with our web site 11/16 - 11/19. While we received your order, it did not include any payment information. For this reason we were not able to process your order. The problems have now been corrected. We ask that you please visit our site again to replace your order or you may call us at 1.800.991.6815.
(Note that my order was actually placed on November 12, and Foot Locker sent this email on November 15, so it once again proved itself disconnected from knowledge of reality)
At the time of the error, it did not know why things went wrong. Now, it does not know what day it is, let alone that I had already addressed the errant order and replaced it with a new one.
Seriously, Foot Locker?
If You Say No, You Better Know
No customer experience is perfect. Every business will make a mistake. Every business will say no to a customer.
But imperfection in the knowledge process is neither inevitable nor understandable. It simply cannot be tolerated.
If an unexpected issue impacts a customer, it is the business’ obligation—not the customer’s—to spot the issue, address the cause and offer a proactive solution. And it is the business’ obligation to provide the information a customer needs to move forward.
And a business does not simply need to unlock such information; it needs to assure access to the information exists at every conceivable touch point. Agents should neither be held prisoner by a lack information nor by their need to cover an organization’s lack of information. They should be empowered to give the customer the information he needs. They should be positioned to deliver the satisfaction the customer demands.
Internal systems, resources and knowledge hubs must exist in a state of transparent, cohesive harmony. They must facilitate easy communication to beat the customer to the punch. Before a customer finds out something went wrong, the business should already have identified the problem, communicated it through the right channels and assured a fix.
And in the rare cases when that is not possible, the business should at least know enough about the customer and his transactions to offer an intelligent, relevant retroactive solution.