Friday, January 20, 2012

customer service FAIL.

If you haven't heard about the breach of security at zappos.com by now, you're either returning from a month-long hiatus at an ashram, or dusting your jeans off after crawling out from under that rock.

(if I've offended you and you really haven't heard what happened, you can read the gory details here)

I heard about the breach on Monday, and immediately changed my password. Then freaked out that my identity was going to be stolen. Then remembered how disappointed they'd be when they saw my bank account.

That was Monday.

On Wednesday, I got an email from Zappos telling me about the security breach. Did you catch that? WEDNESDAY.

Security breach news: Monday.
Security breach news from Zappos: Wednesday.

I was so appalled that I responded to their email.

It went something (exactly) like this:

"Wow. I can't believe I'm only getting this email now, TWO WHOLE DAYS after the story broke. I changed my password when I first read about what happened. For a company who boasts excellent customer service, I thought you'd be more on the ball."

(That was me being nice.)

((Also, I heard the founder of Zappos.com speak once, and the topic of the seminar was "Fabulous Customer Service". They may need a new speech writer.))

To Zappos.com's credit, I got a response. First I got the automated 'thanks for your email, you're important to us' email. (Though I'm starting to think they need to re-think this email a bit, as I don't feel very important with my secure information being hacked and all that...)

Then I got this email from them:

"Hello,

Thank you for contacting the Zappos.com Customer Loyalty Team.

We sincerely apologize that you heard about this serious matter through media reports before you received the email from us. We are working through sending email notifications to 24 million customers and that takes roughly 24 hours to do.

Once again we would like to apologize for the inconvenience that this may have caused you. At Zappos.com, we understand the importance of the customer experience, which includes the website, customer service and support, security and peace of mind, as well as the actual fulfillment and timely delivery of your order. We sincerely hope you will give us the opportunity to prove our commitment to this in the future."

Hmmm. A few things, Zappos:

1. you're upset I heard about the news in the media before I heard it from you? well, you took TWO DAYS to send me an email.

2. you need 24 hours to send an email? really? in 2012?

3. apparently you're bad at customer service AND math, because you didn't send me an email until 48 hours after the breach.

Sorry, Zappos. We're on a break.

I'm a loyal Piperlime girl now.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. I'm a long time lurker and while I've enjoyed the majority of your blog, I'm sorry to say this is the bitchiest post I've ever read, not taking into account possible sarcasm. Thousands of people received the email later than the story broke, and it DOES actually take that long for companies to mass email that many customers, EVEN in 2012.

Also, it wasn't even banking information that was stolen, so relax.

Muffy Willowbrook said...

I get so dang excited when I see a Piperlime box at my front door! Green and white polka dots?! LOVE!