Open thread: Customer service, calling stores out, spending

So, last night’s Sale Guessing Game comments thread was pretty interesting, wasn’t it? I have plenty of thoughts to share after the jump and then welcome the community’s thoughts and feedback.

Let’s start at the detail level and then zoom back to the 10,000 foot view. I locked the comments because a discussion about customer service was getting out of control. Jen had what can only be described as a terrible experience where she made some returns at an Anthropologie store, followed by getting a threatening call from a “restricted” phone number that blacklisted her from the store.

However, I don’t want to talk about Jen specifically aside from saying that I hope she reached out Anthropologie’s service team directly. And I hope Jen will come back and let us know what they say. I can understand her frustration and the way she was treated was at best irresponsible. But let’s not make this discussion about Jen or that specific store. Instead let’s use that as a jumping off point to talk about customer service, customer tracking, return policies and Anthropologie’s strategies.

This is a huge task, too much to fit in one post. So let’s start with Customer Service, and we’ll continue this as a series this week.

WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON WITH ANTHROPOLOGIE CUSTOMER SERVICE?
This is a question we’ve heard very often in the last nine months. Emails to customer service go unanswered or we wait a very long time for responses. The representatives on Anthropologie’s customer service phone line seem to know less than we do about Anthropologie’s policies, or they are giving canned answers like “We’ll make a one-time exception” which only annoy and make me gnash my teeth. Even when we escalate by contacting Anthropologie’s community team our emails often go without a response.

The lack of response is baffling enough when you contact them about an outlier issue like receiving the wrong item or a wishlist that has disappeared. But to not receive any word back when you contact them about something simple like a price adjustment or an order’s status is a real loyalty-killer.

It’s clear to me that Anthropologie’s customer service team is overwhelmed. I believe that the volume of cases they have to handle far exceeds the current staffing. Or it’s possible that they don’t have enough decision-makers in the customer service department who are knowledgeable enough about Anthro’s policies and inner workings to solve the complex issues coming their way. A simple issue may take one rep 20 minutes to solve but a complex issue may involve hours of work and many people to solve. If there’s only one or two people who can run the show of solving those difficult issues that limits the efficiency of the service department. It becomes a logjam.

The logjam is more apparent now because those outlier problems are becoming more frequent. More and more I see community members receiving an item that is not what they ordered, or a package that has gone missing, or a promotional price that was applied incorrectly, or a double-billing hold on a customer credit card. I’m exhausted just listing those scenarios out!

The logjam is also more apparent now because there are more customers. Let’s be honest — I can remember Anthropologie’s customer service being unhelpful dating back to 2009. While the in-store service is usually exemplary the phone line service has always been adequate at best. In the last two years Anthropologie has opened about 20 new stores and has seen its online sales explode. As their order numbers grow the problems become amplified. The customer is the one who suffers.

SMALLER FISH TO FRY — STOP INTRODUCING NEW FEATURES TIL THE ONES YOU HAVE NOW WORK
In application development there is one simple rule that the best developers abide: No introducing new features until the ones you have work 99.9% of the time. It appears that Anthropologie is breaking that rule.

While we as customers see the slow response time from customer service, behind the scenes my guess is that there are larger service and operating issues to tackle. I ran a client services department for two years and before that I was a client-facing project manager for about six years. I can tell you that nothing makes your job harder as the face of the company than having processes and operations behind you that don’t work.

From what I can see on the outside looking in, Anthropologie has some pretty basic logistics issues right now. And those issues are causing order issues, which are causing customer service issues, which are causing operating expense issues and loyalty issues. Domino, domino, domino…one falls after another.

BASIC ISSUE #1: Inventory tracking is inaccurate.
How many times have you ordered an item from the website only to have it cancelled? This was an issue before ordering store inventory online became an option.  Remember phantom popbacks where an item keeps coming back into stock in one size but isn’t really available? Now with store inventory counted online it may be days or even weeks before a customer knows if their order will actually be fulfilled.

It seems like Anthropologie doesn’t have people whose job is specifically reconciling inventory. At the online/catalogue level they must be getting a daily report to the logistics team that shows order cancellations due to lack of inventory and items that have stock showing on the website but no stock in the warehouse. What do they do with these reports? I’m guessing nothing. I hope I’m wrong.

This inventory tracking issue is compounded now that ordering store inventory online is an option. Yes, it’s something we customers have been clamoring for. But it’s only helpful if it works and right now the feature is not impressing me. Have I benefited from it? Absolutely. Have I been burned by it? Several times, which in my opinion is too many. If I as one customer have had multiple orders cancelled because of lack of store inventory from an order placed online, the problem must be huge at the company-wide level. That’s not acceptable.

My guess is that the managers who are actually in charge of the day-to-day in Anthropologie’s logistics and operations departments are not only well aware of these issues, they’ve probably raised their concerns to leadership. I’ll bet you anything those day-to-day managers warned that store inventory fulfillment wasn’t ready to be rolled out and that there are quality control issues that need to be fixed in the warehouses. And I’ll bet you anything that leadership only cared about being able to announce that store inventory fulfillment is now rolled out, or that mobile point of sales are now rolled out, and operations you just figure out how to make it work!!

Oh how I have been there. Middle management…it blows. And now ordering from Anthropologie’s website blows too. How’s that for customer loyalty?

BASIC ISSUE #2: The wrong item is shipped too often.
Who is the everyday warehouse worker? They’re probably male. They’re probably middle-aged. And they’re probably not a clothing aficionado.

Why does this matter? Have you ever asked your husband/boyfriend/brother/father/male friend to pick you up an item from the grocery store? Chances are you say something like “Please get Land O-Lakes salted butter. It’s in a light blue container.” And then maybe they come home with the butter you asked for, or maybe it’s a yellow spray bottle of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! instead. They don’t do this on purpose. It’s because details matter on different levels to dudes — they just hear get butter.

So now picture your everyday male warehouse worker. You ordered the Flocked Speckle Dress ($188) in turquoise. But the warehouse worker’s picklist says something like “TURQ DOTTED SLEEVELESS A24788523.” There’s no picture of what this item looks like on the picklist. And when the worker gets to the right aisle and then the right bin they see A24788523, but they also see a pile of turquoise Flocked Speckle Dresses folded neatly into squares inside a plastic wrap as well as coral ones. How can they even tell it’s a dress? Is it any wonder that we get the wrong item so frequently? It’s like we’re speaking two entirely different languages.

In fact, we are speaking two different languages. I will never understand why so many retailers use unmatched SKUs and product descriptions but it happens quite often. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if the worker’s picklist said “Flocked Speckle Dress, turquoise, A24788523”? And maybe with a little color picture to boot? And then when they got to the bin in the warehouse where the dress lives they can match all those details up? But no, instead all they have to go on is some weird assortment of letters and words that makes very little sense. I would mess up in this scenario too.

Food for thought: two years ago ASOS installed a new ERP system where their inventory product descriptions for picklists match the online descriptions exactly. Their warehouse workers have mobile scanners so that when they arrive at a bin they can scan the barcode and visually confirm that the item they just picked matches up to the website item, thus ensuring the customer gets the right item. The result? Order accuracy above 98%. Logic!! It works.

BASIC ISSUE #3: It takes too long for orders to get cancelled.
When you place an order on Anthropologie’s website it can go to up to 3 warehouses for fulfillment. If none of the warehouses have your item it can go to up to 5 stores. If none of the stores have the item your order gets cancelled, even though another store may have stock or the warehouse got more in. This whole process takes entirely too long right now — up to two weeks from what I’ve experienced.

You try waiting two weeks for something you really want. Does the anger ratchet up as you wait and wait and wait? Yup. And around the holidays consider the amplification of that impatience. Obviously this is a silly problem on the surface — oh no, the new dress I ordered might not come! — but as the retailer selling this piece, you’re burning customers. And eventually they will learn to back away from the fire and go shopping somewhere else.

These basic issues breed impatience in customers and causes customer service strife — reps can’t solve any of these issues themselves so they’re helpless when talking to customers. That breeds frustration on both sides.

GETTING RESULTS FROM CUSTOMER SERVICE
If you’re an Anthropologie customer, what can you do to get results the fastest?

1. State your issue clearly. Instead of “I placed an order last week that is still processing, what’s the status?” say “I’m writing to check on the status of order A3430923. I placed this order on Thursday January 3rd but the status has not changed. Can I have an update please?”
2. State what response you expect clearly. Instead of “I wrote in asking for a PA two weeks ago and haven’t heard back” say “I requested a PA in the amount of $38.26 on order A3430923 on Monday January 7th. This PA has not reflected on my credit card statement yet. Can you please confirm you’ve received this PA request and let me know when I can expect to see it reflected?”
3. If you are escalating, say so. Instead of just repeating your email, make sure you say “I’m writing you because I contacted your customer service team 7 days ago but have not received a response. I would appreciate an acknowledgment from someone today that this issue is being looked into.”

DON’T be rude. I can promise you rude emails get bumped to the back of the queue at most companies.

If you have a really severe problem, you can also CC Anthropologie leadership on the email. I would reserve this option for the worst of problems — not my order has been cancelled or I got the wrong item, but things like my credit card was triple-charged or I was harassed and called inappropriate names by a SA/customer service rep.

You can find email addresses for Urban Outfitter’s leadership team here.

WE’RE ALL PEOPLE HERE
Please, please above all remember that Customer Service reps and store SAs are people. Just like us! I can’t tell you how many rude customers I’ve seen berating SAs over something they cannot control. (And yes I’ve seen the other way too where accusatory SAs make life hard on customers. We’re all human.) Being mean to someone is unnecessary and on an issue so unimportant like clothing it’s just sad. Keep your wits about you.

If an employee is rude to you, report it! You’re not being a tattletale. If you choose not to report it that’s fine but don’t hold a grudge.

YOUR TURN
I’m only scratching the surface of customer service here but this post has gone on long enough. We’ll tackle other issues (customer tracking, return policies, etc.) later this week but feel free to start the discussion here! Please keep it polite and clean.