wrote:
I enjoyed reading the above posts and can see "above and beyond the
call of duty" on the vendor's part and poor judgement in the buyer's
part as in the newspaper incident. I've ordered a little off of ebay in
the past and could tell when an order was carefully packaged. (I liked
seeing the exact plant I was getting) What nobody's mentioned though is
maybe putting care instructions in with the order ......Burr


I think most vendors don't mind going above and beyond the call, on a
pretty routine basis. I'm not sure I trust most sellers on E-bay,
largely because I've never seen one with any substantial negative
feedback, and all of the positive feedback seems to say the same thing
(identically, and from the same reviewer, often). That seems like vote
stuffing to me... I'm sure there are good sellers and bad sellers, but
I'd really prefer some way of being able to tell which is which.

Just a brief response to Kenni's comment earlier. I think my
philosophy might be best summed up as "Trust but verify". It may have
sounded like I would never give a refund without the customer sending
the plants back... I don't know if I'd be that inflexible. For an
established customer (or somebody I've known for years on the internet),
I think the rules could be relaxed substantially. And I suspect I'd be
willing to accept a digital picture as evidence of damage. And maybe if
a customer was just adamantly opposed to the labor of taking a package
to the post office I might (just might) offer a replacement (but not a
refund, I think). Of course I would never say that on a 'terms and
conditions' statement. It is far better to sound absolutely inflexible
and bend like the wind, than the opposite. Sometimes you need the leverage.

I've never taken a customer service seminar. Although I spent 6 years
packing groceries for easy and troubling customers alike when I was in
school. And a few years selling plants at a nursery, and a few years
doing consulting... It seems to me that the key to customer service is
listening to the customer. Sometimes that means listening to what they
don't say, as well. The reciprocal key is that the customer has to hear
your response, and the art of communication goes a long way to making
that happen. I have met very few problems that weren't solved by
improved communication.

I like the idea of putting care instructions in with orders.

Rob
--
Rob's Rules: http://littlefrogfarm.com
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a) See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to obtain more
orchids, obtain more credit

Diana Kulaga schrieb:

I do remember an order that I placed a few years ago, from a major
and well recognized orchid vendor (no names!). The plants were listed as
blooming size. Hah! They are still in the nursery, after about 3 years. They
are growing with the former residents of a compot that I bought around the
same time. I suspect they will all bloom out at the same time, in probably
another year. I blamed myself, because the prices were unrealistically low
for BS plants.

This is one of my main gripes. I also have a plant that was listed as
near blooming size and is still not BS. It was several plants in one
pot, masquerading as BS. That was the only bad experience from this
vendor, but as a rule, I would expect the vendor to calculate size on
the long side, letting the customer be pleasantly surprised if the plant
blooms sooner. I assume that in this case, the plant was bought from
another source and the end vendor (usually very reputable) knew nothing
about the actual size of the plant.
I also agree with Dave that shipping a plant back can be a terrible
amount of work, and would rather keep the plant and get some kind of
retribution, though I can *very* well understand that vendors are wary
of these requests. When I am on the receiving end, it is obvious to
*me* that I am not cheating, but if I were on the giving end, I would be
suspect of others' motives! :-)
I disagree with Dave about the scale incident, however, since the vendor
is surely interested in knowing about such problems. He may not have to
take action regarding the sale, but he will want to take action
regarding the sCale!

--
Reka

This is LIFE! It's not a rehearsal. Don't miss it!
http://www.rolbox.it/hukari/index.html

Kenni Judd wrote:


Our own policy is to apologize [whether or not we think we did anything
wrong G], and ask that the unsatisfactory plants be returned, whereupon we
will issue a full refund including the return postage. Fortunately for us,
it's a rare occurence, but I'm still curious.

What say all of you? What more would you expect, if anything?

Oh, no, I hate to disagree (well, actually, I don't hate disagreeing,
being a generally disagreeable person), but I have to.
I work in a public service position with a company whose philosophy is
similar. It is a horrible idea. We do not live in times (anymore) where
the public at large has dignity, self-respect, and integrity, let alone
any consideration for others or any idea of proper public deportment.
My company has now conditioned 2 generations of this town
to complain, no matter how baseless. Complaint brings reward. A recent
newspaper cartoon showed a waitress beneath a sign which read: "Free
dessert with complaint. Argue about expiry date of dessert coupon for
additional free dessert". Bad idea.

I do not expect any vendor to reward me for baseless complaints. Many if
not most complaints I hear about in the service sector are either
baseless or the result of incorrect expectations on the part of the
consumer, who doesn't read (a menu, a price list, warnings, shipping
info, whatever) or do his/her homework. Not the vendor's problem. One
reason I didn't like OGRES (the other was the anonymity). If there's a
real problem, IF I am COURTEOUS in my complaint, I expect the vendor to
make me a happy customer. For example, I recently purchased four
shutters online. Free shipping (didn't specify method), items ship
within 24-48 hours, with email notification. A week later, I called, got
voicemail, and left a message POLITELY inquiring about the shipping,
giving my name and order number, the date of shipping and my curiosity
given the shipping timeframe and the email notification and that I
hadn't heard anything, asking if they could please let me know the
status of my order. I received no reply by phone. I DID get an email
that night, not admitting anything or even acknowledging my call, to the
effect that "order #xxxxxx has shipped, expected delivery date (next day)".
The shutters arrived the next day. They had Fedexed them overnight at I
assume a hefty cost from CA to OH.

Result? I will recommend them heartily to anyone who asks. I don't
demand groveling. What they did implicitly acknowledged their error, and
they made up for it (ground shipping within their 48 hour deadline might
not have gotten them here any sooner) and it cost them to do it that way
rather than meaninglessly apologize and still ship ground.

Personally, I sold a small seedling cattleya for $5 I noted was 5" tall
to someone (along with a few other plants) about five years ago. When
the box arrived, I received a very nasty email, insulting and rude,
which complained that the plant was small for a cattleya which grows to
30" tall, and would take years to get to blooming size.

I attempted to email this person (politely), not because I felt the
complaint was legitimate (it clearly was not as I had specified the size
of the plant and it actually measured a little taller), but to see if I
could somehow mollify this person by reasoning or explaining. I was
considering options pending a reply, having not yet offered a specific
remedy, and not being very disposed to be helpful after his rudeness. My
email was returned with a note from his ISP that my email address had
been blocked by that account. I have no doubt this person has given me
negeative press at every opportunity. I had no chance to respond; the
complaint was unjustified.

Now if this person posted to OGRES, being selective in their info, it
would look very negative.

I often disregard opinions about vendors based on my knowledge of the
person making the recommendation.

Back to my expectations: another issue I bear in mind before complaining
even if I think I have a legitimate complaint: do I need this vendor
again as a source for things I can't get elsewhere? Do I want a
reputation as a complainer? (don't think vendors also share stories)?
And did they maybe, just maybe, just have a bad day (remember: we're all
only human and someday you may be the one having the bad day)? Is there
a possibility I was unreasonable in my expectations or unclear in my
order, or failed to do homework? And if my complaint is legitimate, how
big a deal is it? Do I expect someone to bend over backwards for
something small, or will a simple acknowledgement do?

One more thing: condition. I have heard folks complain about tiny
imperfections in plants they have ordered from numerous growers as if it
was a federal case of fraud. All I expect is a healthy plant. Plants are
living things, and might just have a little spot of sunburn, perhaps a
missing leaf on one bulb, a scar here or there. All they're offering is
a healthy plant. If it's got decent roots, is the appropriate size, and
looks helathy like it'll live and do ok, then I'm satisfied. Now if it's
a Sharry Baby and I had to pay $4,000.00 for it I guess I'd expect it to
be picture-perfect. Otherwise I think people need to have more realistic
expectations.

We have care instructions available on our Website and will also put a hard
copy in the box for anyone who requests one. But an awful lot of my
customers don't need or want them, so I don't send them unless requested.
This is not a cost issue, they're really cheap. But I try to protect the
environment -- reduce, re-use, recycle ... Kenni

wrote in message
...
I enjoyed reading the above posts and can see "above and beyond the
call of duty" on the vendor's part and poor judgement in the buyer's
part as in the newspaper incident. I've ordered a little off of ebay in
the past and could tell when an order was carefully packaged. (I liked
seeing the exact plant I was getting) What nobody's mentioned though is
maybe putting care instructions in with the order ......Burr

Joanna: How would they know to ask, if you never told them you were
dissatisfied? Kenni

"J Fortuna" wrote in message
news:N2che.176$pb1.55@trnddc08...
Kenni,
I am probably a bad respondent to this thread, since the only time that I
was not satisfied with a mail ordered orchid I did not inform the vendor
but
I never ordered from them again. I don't know whether any vendor could do
anything in response to that. The main thing that this vendor should have
done is not send me a phal with almost no roots left to begin with (so bad
that it wobbled when shaken -- it maybe had one or two healthy roots when
I
had it repotted within a week of receiving it). I don't know why I didn't
inform the vendor. I decided to keep the plant and treat it well and see
how
it would do. Two years later this plant (a phal belina) has a very healthy
root system and it is in bud (yay!), so the story has a happy ending for
the
orchid and for me. However, I still would not buy from that vendor, and
they
still don't know why not, they didn't ask, I didn't tell. I wonder how
often
that happens.
Joanna

Dave: On our policy, we pay the return shipping -- no expense to you. And
you can use Priority Mail, which means you can print out a label with
postage and schedule a free pick-up by the USPS [either at your home or your
workplace, whichever is more convenient for you] using their "click-n-ship"
service -- takes 2-3 minutes. And if you really had to buy a box, you could
put the receipt in with the plants and I'd reimburse you for that, too. For
one guy who insisted on paying by money order rather than credit card, we
offered to pay the money order fee, too! [He still wasn't satisfied ... ]

I am only human and I do make mistakes. One time I sent a lady the wrong
plant entirely -- it was in the next tray and I grabbed it by mistake. She
got a new plant of the right kind, without shipping the other back. But
when I send out say, 10 of Plant X in the course of a month and get back 6-7
responses from customers who are thrilled with it, I trust you'll understand
that I'm a bit leery of the customer who calls upon receipt of #11, foaming
at the mouth about how awful it is ... It might not be true of the large
farms, but in our case, I'm the one who packs the boxes, so I happen to know
that #11 was just as good as #s 1-10, at least when it left here.

And, like one of the other posters, I do have to say that the tone of the
complaint does influence our response. Even semi-polite complaints elicit
our best effort to make a happy customer. [The lady mentioned above was
rather accusatory at first ... ]. But foaming at the mouth (name calling
and gratuitous insults involving foul language) generates "I'm so sorry you
were unhappy with the plants. Please return them, and as soon as we receive
them, we will issue you a full refund including your return shipping." We
don't expect to receive future orders from such customers, but in the
unlikely event that we do, we WILL be "out" of whatever they order .. no
matter how many of them we have. Kenni

I really hate having to ship stuff back. Not only do I have spend the time
to re-package the silly thing but I have to spend money to ship it back
making the whole transaction more expensive for me. Of course the box it
came in is probably too big for shipping it back (who mail orders just one
orchid?). Oh by the way, my wife throughs all empty boxes in the trash so
in
all likelihood I'll have to buy a box in order to ship the plant back to
you.
Worst of all, I have to somehow find time in my day to make the trek down
to UPS/FedEx during business hours to stand in line to get the thing
shipped.
My life is too hectic already without having to deal with all that hassle.
You will go on my list of high maintenance vendors and one of three things
will happen. First, if I perceive you to be a high quality vendor then I
won't sweat that rare problem and I'll take the hit myself and make life
easy on myself. Second, if there are other vendors that I know of who
don't
require me to ship stuff back I'll deal with them preferentially over you.
I feel that I should state that while I don't expect a grower to provide a
replacement without returning the unsatisfactory plant I greatly
appreciate
(and am amazed at the trust) of the growers that do. Third, if the first
two situations don't apply I'll silently never order from you again.

As a side note I think the preceding diatribe answers Rob's rhetorical
question about why an honest customer would object to sending an order
back.
Then again, maybe my laziness qualifies me as a bad customer. :-)

Dave

Kenni,
If they had a routine as part of their customer service to inquire whether
the client is satisfied with the plant, I would have responded to that
probably. But basically no, they did not have a good way of knowing that I
was dissatisfied, since I did not complain ... just did not order from them
again. Unless of course, they had been aware of the plant's lack of roots
after all, and had shipped it to me regardless, then they might have guessed
that I was not going to be too happy with it.
Joanna

"Kenni Judd" wrote in message
...
Joanna: How would they know to ask, if you never told them you were
dissatisfied? Kenni

"J Fortuna" wrote in message
news:N2che.176$pb1.55@trnddc08...
Kenni,
I am probably a bad respondent to this thread, since the only time that
I
was not satisfied with a mail ordered orchid I did not inform the vendor
but
I never ordered from them again. I don't know whether any vendor could
do
anything in response to that. The main thing that this vendor should
have
done is not send me a phal with almost no roots left to begin with (so
bad
that it wobbled when shaken -- it maybe had one or two healthy roots
when
I
had it repotted within a week of receiving it). I don't know why I
didn't
inform the vendor. I decided to keep the plant and treat it well and see
how
it would do. Two years later this plant (a phal belina) has a very
healthy
root system and it is in bud (yay!), so the story has a happy ending for
the
orchid and for me. However, I still would not buy from that vendor, and
they
still don't know why not, they didn't ask, I didn't tell. I wonder how
often
that happens.
Joanna