Packaging

Prepare yourselves for another tiny rant, dear readers.

So, I ship stuff, and I'm fussy about packaging. In my MAB shop, everything goes into an organza bag, a Ziploc bag with a business card and sometimes extras, then wrapped in bubble wrap, then a bubble wrap mailer. This way, it's double bubbled, protected from water damage, and pretty when you finally get down to the actual jewelry. It's kind of labor intensive, but I want to make sure things are safe and look nice too.

I order stuff on Etsy too. I'm not one of those people who needs ribbons and cards and confetti when I open a package. I don't even need an organza bag. However, I would like stuff to be securely packaged. It's nice to make orders a little special, but not necessary. Just make sure they're going to survive their shipments.

In the past, I have received three orders with packaging that sent me off the deep end. See if you concur, or if I'm being unreasonable.
1. A vintage necklace to cut apart for the beads. The necklace was thrown loose into a nonpadded envelope. No bag, no bubble, no paperwork, no nothing. A poor loose necklace. The seal on the envelope had come halfway loose during shipping.
2. A necklace I was going to repurpose. It was wrapped in newspaper and then box tape. No box, no envelope, no bag, no bubble. A wad of paper with tape on it. Seriously.
3. A pair of vintage items for Christmas. Shoved into a Sketchers shoebox that was too small for the items. The items got all bent and mutilated. No packing material whatsoever, just smooshed and loose in the box. Poor little things, it broke my heart.

Like I said, I don't need ribbons and fancy pants. I do, however, like things to be sanely packaged. And I will never return to these sellers again. What do you think about packaging?

Dear cell phone addict

Yes, you there. You who ran into my behind this morning in the big box grocery store because you were too busy talking to someone about what kind of soup to get. You who ignored your child who kamikazied in front of my cart because you were texting something incredibly important and couldn't be bothered to look up. Yes. You who almost ran me down as you raced from the McDonald's parking lot with your phone all up in your face while stuffing french fries in your mouth with your free hand. You who never even sees the rest of the world just trying to stay out of your way as the cell phone eats your head. There is no app for me wanting to smack you.

Stop. Stop it now. You're really starting to tick me off.

Customer service? A tiny rant.

So, I have a credit card with a large box electronics store with a blue and yellow logo involving a tag, not to name names. Their billing is handled by another company, and apparently has been outsourced. I opened my statement today to pay my bill, and my last payment was not applied to my account, although the check has cleared my bank.

Now, I have posted cash in a past life, and occasionally a person can make a mistake and post a payment to the wrong account. We're all humans, not a huge deal, and easily fixed. I have researched and handled these problems before.

So, I called the customer service number and reached a CSR who did not help me. At all. I explained what had happened, and asked if I could give him the check number so he could research my problem. He said he could not access that information. I have to get a copy of my cancelled check and send it to the customer service address. I asked if they needed a hard copy of the check, and he replied, no, they needed a copy of the check mailed to the customer service address. Okay, we were not communicating well. Frustration.

I got online with my bank, and this unnamed store processes payments as echecks. There is no copy of a cancelled check. I've sent an email to my bank asking for some sort of hardcopy of the transaction so I can try and get this taken care of. I am not a happy MAB right now.

Here is my point: I have worked in customer service and accounting, and have taken two hundred million (approximately) phone calls in my life. At no point would I have refused to help a customer or research their problem. An unhappy customer will stop being your customer. At this point, I will hesitate to ever buy from this company again. If they can't back up their sales with decent customer service, then I don't want to deal with them.

When it comes to my etsy shop, I will do whatever it takes to make a customer happy. That is part of my job, and usually one of my favorite parts of my job. That is also why I like to shop from etsy and other smaller businesses. They value my business. 99.4% of the time, there is no problem. The shop gets their money and provides their service or product, and they never hear from me, except for good feedback or other praise and appreciation. Heck, I take the post office people brownies on a regular basis, because they're so wonderful to me. But, when it comes to that 0.6% of the time when there is an issue, I want, and we all want, service that at least makes us feel like we're valued. If we don't get that, there are plenty of places out there to shop.

Okay, I feel better. Hopefully, my bank, which has always given me great service, will be able to provide me with the info to clear this up. If not, this unnamed store has not heard the end of me.