After years of buying stuff online, I recently had my first dud transaction. I had ordered Amish Tripathi's "Scions of Ishvaku" and two other books on Amazon, about a month back. The order was to be serviced by three different sellers. I promptly got a confirmation and delivery of the 2 other books, however 'Scions of Ishkavu' order status progressed through various stages from 'being dispatched', 'reaching warehouse' and even 'out for delivery', but there was no physical trace of the order.
When I called up customer service after a few days, the service agent was extremely courteous, reassuring and promised to check with the courier company. But again, nothing happened, not even an acknowledgement of the service request. I eventually ended up talking to the service desk 4 times, and surprisingly every conversation was alike - very courteous, understanding, reassuring and with absolutely no action. In the final call when I persisted and threatened legal action, things finally moved. I got a complaint lodged as well, against the agents who had (mis)handled the case earlier.
This was a low value transaction with no urgency, yet it finally got onto my nerves. The large e-commerce players have many a chink in their armor, inspite of increasing maturity in their processes and million of dollars of investment into customer service and delivery. Once in a while, you do keep hearing of issues from friends about incorrect billing, order not getting delivered or even worse, getting a lemon when you order high-value electronic items. However, online is the way forward for consumers and e-commerce companies should speedily fix those odd issues in their workflows.
PS: Yesterday, I got an email from the bank confirming that a refund has been my initiated on this transaction. But, the surprise this time was that the credit had been done for all 3 books, not just the one undelivered. I'm just getting a request raised for payment of the 2 other books, and I wonder how much time Amazon would take for this credit back to them!
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