When Customer Service Flies Out the Window

This day and age everything is so fast paced and streamlined when it comes to the retail world.   You can do a lot of your shopping in your pajamas in front of the television (which I love!).  I think with these many conveniences, you tend to lose track of what it is like to personally deal with people as a consumer, and it makes it easier for retailers to avoid working with them when a problem arises.

I recently ran across a great deal on a couple of car seats for the boys.  We currently have car seats for the boys but they seem to be outgrowing them and the things appear to be falling apart.   They will be in them for at least two more years, and I am afraid that they won’t last.  So I popped online when a friend told me that Target was running a terrific deal on Britax car seats ($42.99), so I rushed over and purchased two of them online.   Well come to find out, they were mispriced and they wound up canceling my order.  I was pretty bummed to say the least and felt a bit jipped.   Most places would typically honor the priceif it was a mistake on their part.

I was informed in my cancellation notice that, if I still wanted these seats that I could purchase them at the regular price of ($280) per seat!  WOW!   Now I can understand, that they made a mistake, but as a customer I feel like I am really the one paying for it.   Whatever happened to actual “customer service?”  Instead with this email, it felt more like welcome to “TARGET we are at our service.”   So basically their policy is in place to protect only them so only they profit or don’t lose anything?  Something seems a little backwards about that…don’t you think?   How is this anything remotely akin to customer service?, not only that, if you call, you more than likely will get someone in India!

Several of my friends had called about this mishap and were reassured that the price would be honored, then their orders were canceled, and a few lucky people…so I hear, had their seats shipped.   I am totally irked by all of this, and I am not usually one that complains much about this sort of thing, but I guess it just struck me as very seedy like practice.  How convenient it must be not to follow through, or just be able to send out a cancellation notice and poof your problems are over.  I usually have to deal with the mistakes I make, and their isn’t any way I can erase them….why should it be any different for Target or anyone else?  If I showed up and didn’t have my receipt, it would have been I am sorry but we can not refund your purchase.  I would seriously reconsider where you shop next time…I definitely won’t be shopping at Target anytime soon!

Here is the email I got in response to my letter I sent through their online help.  Notice the letter is from Sinu and none of the other responses I have read that other folks posted were from names I could pronounce.   Wow, what a way to do your customers…send out a general letter and not address the issue at all.  Not much different from the cancellation letter they sent to everyone.

I’m sorry, but we had to cancel your order with us for Britax marathon car seat. Because of an error, our website showed the wrong price for this item, and we can’t sell it to you for that price. If you’d still like to buy the item for the correct price, you can go ahead and place a new order.

We work hard to make sure that all of the prices on Target.com are right, but the rare mistake does come up. That’s why we always double check prices when we ship your order. In this case, we cancelled your order when we found the mistake. In other situations, we may choose to contact you for instructions before cancelling or changing your order.

Everything we did is in line with our posted pricing policies. If you want more information about those policies, you can look them up here: http://www.target.com/help

I know that you count on more than just great products from Target.com, and that having the right information on our website is just is important. I hope we haven’t disappointed you, and that you’ll continue to shop with us.

Best regards,

Sinu Thomas

Target.com Guest Service

http://www.target.com