Do you shop at Ruche? Although I feel like I’m a little outside the brand’s target demographic now I still love visiting the website and will occasionally pick up something super cute. It’s been a lot of fun watching founder Mai Olivo grow Ruche from a teeny business with a fantastic discerning eye to a thriving small business that reminds me of the Anthro of old.
Perhaps Anthropologie could learn a thing or two from this delightful online brand. Or perhaps remember the way things should be. When Ruche recently ran into a minor coding gaffe that led to its sale section being 50-99% off the team there knew it had a crisis on its hands. How did they respond? Find out inside, and then let’s chat about how this relates to Anthro and our moral responsibility as customers.
Here’s what happened to Ruche. In the last week of July, they sent out an email with a coupon code to customers that was meant to be “save an extra 25% off sale items.” The email clearly stated the promotion was save 25% off sale items. Unfortunately someone at Ruche accidentally coded the promotion as “save $25 off sale items.” The error had disastrous results. Some items in Ruche’s sale section were $25 or less, meaning that customers who discovered the coding error ended up ordering items for free.
Ruche founder Mai Olivo posted a note to Facebook explaining the situation and how they decided to handle it. From her note:
Hi everyone,
I’m Mai, the co-founder of Ruche. On Saturday [July 27, 2013], we offered a discount code for 25% off our sale section. Unfortunately, a technical error took $25 off each sale item instead. When we discovered this late Saturday, we corrected the coupon code and immediately discussed how to proceed with the orders placed. Our plan of action (as outlined below), however, was not received as well as I had hoped. I’d like to take this opportunity to clearly outline the situation, personally thank everyone for their feedback, and offer a formal apology on behalf of my company.
Upon realizing the error, we hoped we could honor all orders placed. After analyzing our orders, however, we quickly became disheartened and realized the gravity of the situation. To our nightmare, the coupon code made almost half our sale section completely free and the majority of other items 50-99% off. Thousands of items were ordered for free. Due to the amount of orders placed, it became obvious to us that the coupon code went viral and some people chose to capitalize on the error. We strive to provide an amazing experience for all of our customers and engage with everyone in a positive environment. We would never want to capitalize on other’s misfortunes and we hope our community feels the same.
Mixed in with these orders, we understand that there were orders placed by our loyal customers and fans who did not intend to capitalize on the error. It breaks my heart that it was impossible for us to analyze each individual order to discern between the two. In our best effort to accommodate as many orders as we possibly could, we honored the orders that were placed totaling up to a 50% discount off the entire order. For orders with a discount that summed beyond 50% off the total purchase price, we canceled the order and provided a new 25% off sitewide sale for an additional five days.
Ruche is only five years old and we are a much smaller company than we appear. The long-term recovery we are facing due to the solution we found will honestly be an uphill battle. If we were to honor all the orders placed on Saturday with the erroneous code in addition to orders totaling up to 50% off, the extreme financial loss would break our company. With this in mind, we tried to do right by our customers in the best way we could…
You can read the entire note here.
Does this situation sound familiar Anthropologie lovers? I’m immediately reminded of the recent Tag Sale, during which a code meant to make select Anthropologie furniture 20% off made it $20 instead due to a technical error. In the ensuing hours before Anthro realized their error thousands of orders were placed for items that were in the $100-$3000 range that were incorrectly showing up as $20.
How did Anthropologie handle the situation? In a very few cases they honored the orders. In most cases, they cancelled the orders. In some cases customers were issued a coupon to save 20% off their next Anthropologie purchase with an “oops, we goofed” email.
Anthro is a bigger business than Ruche. By a lot. And Anthropologie is growing. But in the world of retail they’re still pretty small. They have fewer than 250 stores nationwide at last count; they’re not nearly as ubiquitous as a store like The Gap. The 20% off coupon is a generous gesture. I can’t help feel like the response was a little cold, though. By reports in the community not everyone who attempted to order the $20 home items received one of the coupons.
As a customer, it’s disheartening to me to see people taking advantage of these coding errors. I realize we all have different moral codes. But during the Tag Sale for instance I was bummed to see attitudes of, well Anthro’s just a business so who cares if they lose money? It’s their own fault. It’s easy to forget as a company grows that there are people, thousands in Anthro’s case, who make up that business and depend on the salary they make for their own well-being. Sure, Anthropologie like any business is out there to make money. But they don’t try to take advantage of us, and I think in return we shouldn’t try to take advantage of them. It’s why I don’t use the birthday code more than once even though I’m sorely tempted, and why I don’t return and rebuy when an item goes on sale if it’s outside the PA window. Anthropologie treats us well with an incredibly generous return policy among other things. I want to treat this relationship the way I’d want to be treated, even though it’s just a business relationship.
There are some things Anthropologie could do to help themselves. Both Ruche and Anthropologie are for-profit businesses. Both depend in part on customer loyalty for their vitality. How much warmer and fuzzier do I feel after seeing a note like the one from Ms. Olivo? A lot! Sure Ruche is smaller but no matter whether I agree with her take on the situation or not, I can’t help but walk away from her note feeling like, damn, Ruche really cares about their customers. Whereas as nice as the 20% off coupon is, I can’t help but walk away from Anthropologie’s email feeling like, damn, I’m just customer number 527,049.
Don’t think this matters? A company like J.Crew, who I often compare Anthropologie to in my head, is larger than either Anthro or Ruche. Their store employees tend to be just a little haughty which amuses my Connecticut country club roots to no end. Yet even a purposely inaccessible store like J.Crew gives customers a direct line to their CEO, Mickey Drexler. You can email him directly any time and he nearly always responds! (Here’s a recent example via J.Crew Aficionada.) As a J.Crew customer I’ve had several opportunities to meet Jenna Lyons, their President and the former head of women’s design, as well as their head men’s designer Frank Muytjens and several of their home office staff. Living in NYC has a lot to do with that I’m sure but they have traveled to other cities for events. They make it a point to meet their customers. When I tweet @JCrew asking them to bring back the Brewster Tall Boots from 2008, they DM me to say “thanks, we’re passing it along to the design team!”
Just this past weekend I was in J.Crew trying on a dress. The dress was on sale in-store but not online, and I needed a tall which they only sell online. (Ahem, Anthropologie? See how J.Crew carries tall lengths in dresses and pants and also shirts?) A store SA not only called the customer service line from the store to ensure I was given the in-store price, she also helped me apply an online promotional code to my order since the tall version of the dress was online-only. I saved over $80 as a result. And you know what else? There was some stuff there I wanted but I wasn’t sure I wanted to give J.Crew the money. Now I’ll be going back to J.Crew next week to buy a whole bunch of stuff, because I feel all warm and squishy inside about how well I was treated and I’ll feel extra good in the clothing as a result. Even if it’s all dressing and internally they couldn’t give a you-know-what, the outward appearance is that they truly care what the customers think.
Anthropologie does this too but only about halfway. Through the generosity of the home office I had the opportunity to meet former CEO Glen Senk three or four times. I’ve also met Anthro’s buyer at large Keith Johnson multiple times, Executive Creater of Women’s Design Johanna Uurasjarvi, Head Personal Shopper Christina, and their Social Media Director Kelly as well as a few other key leaders. I haven’t met the current CEO David W. McCreight, I’m not sure if he attends events in New York. These have been exciting opportunities for me as EA blogger, but as a customer how many fans know who these people are? Is it really important, or am I making more of this than it is? One of the things I love about living in Manhattan is getting the opportunity to meet the designers behind many brands I love. Does this matter to you?
And beyond meeting the people behind the designs I want to know that I’m valued as a customer. I’m still missing some of the personal touches from Anthropologie. The emails I sometimes don’t get. The copy on the product pages, which is missing the whimsy it used to have. The helpless phone customer service, which often feels like I’m in that Supernatural episode where Crowley’s Hell is just people waiting endlessly in a line.
I’m increasingly pleased with the product designs at Anthro — my wishlist is longer than it’s been in a long time, and so long as the fabric measures up to the prettiness I expect to drop a significant part of my fall shopping budget there. It would be so nice if they’d also turn their attention to the less quantifiable but just as important customer touches. I do want an email thanking me for being a customer since 2003. I do want to know that my birthday discount will include free shipping and will always come like clockwork sometime around January 1. I do want to be invited to store events where I’ll get to talk to the head designer of Maeve or Odille or Elevenses not as a blogger but as a customer and an Anthro lover. (Of course I will also blog these events so long as I’m given permission!) And when Anthro messes up, which happens to any business from time to time, I want to feel like they’re honestly upset about the gaffe and have compassion for me, customer number 527,049, aka roxy, aka Thea, because they want me to come back to the store.
Having seen how much Ruche cares I know I’ll be placing an order there soon. It’s not hard to cajole me into spending — if the clothing is good and the customer care is better, I’m all yours. How do you feel?
