catbird’s world

Dear Old Navy,

I’ve made you a short To Do list for next year’s online holiday shopping season:

1. Real-time stock updates. If you’ve emailed me that something I ordered is out of stock, I shouldn’t be able to buy something two days later. Better yet, take a note from Amazon and don’t list things in the store that are sold out.

2. Tidier order fulfillment. If I put something in my cart and check out, I should receive it. In your brick-and-mortar store you don’t come up to my cart when I’m paying, take stuff out of my cart, and give it to other people, right? So why do it online?

3. Better shipping notification. Offering free shipping is great, but really good communication about when orders will ship and arrive is even better. If I panic and have to contact customer service to find out if my order will arrive on time, you’re doing something wrong.

4. Start post-holiday sales post holiday. I received email about the Old Navy post holiday sale at about 3:30 AM Christmas morning. Next year, please let me enjoy my holiday before announcing your sale.

But, hey, kudos for how you handled my sold out items. I called and got the sold out items replaced with similar items at the same sale price and free shipping as the original. Nice, but really, I’d rather know what is sold out before I buy it so I don’t have to waste time on the phone with customer service and risk not getting my order in time.

Thank you for taking care of these tasks before holiday season 2010. Me and millions of other online shoppers appreciate it.

Sincerely,
cat

catbird :: Dec.29.2009 :: customer service :: Comments Off

My kids love Lucky Charms. Well, they love to eat the marshmallow Charms… the crunchy Luckys are apparently not so desirable. We* always end up with half a box of cereal-sans-marshmallows that gets tossed out or eaten by me.

So I had this idea. Why not make a replacement box of just marshmallows to add back in to your Lucky Charms after all the Charms are devoured? Perfect, right? You could eat the plain or add the to cereal. Who wouldn’t love that? And I’d call them Fortunate Trinkets**.

*By “we” I mean Anne, who always makes sure to have Lucky Charms for her nieces and nephews.
** Thank you for the synonym, Mason.

catbird :: Dec.29.2009 :: food :: Comments Off