Which brings me to third, in a culture of constant and instant internet access, Facebook, Twitter, iPhones and Blackberries, word of mouth is king. Word of mouth can make or break you. And there's no better way to guarantee really bad word of mouth than by failing to meet your customer's expectations. We are all more likely to read the bad reviews than the really glowing ones when we're choosing between products on Amazon. And for every one person that we tell about a good customer service experience, we're more likely to tell seven people about a bad one.
Let me tell you about a really bad one. I'm doing the invitations for a good friend's bridal brunch. The party is being hosted by a large group of ladies from The Valley, most of them my mom's age. All of them LOVE to throw parties, and do so quite frequently. Up till now, Invitation Box has been their stationer of choice.
Now, I do a lot of graphic design work for my job. I design postcards and brochures and newsletters and even the product catalog. I do Christmas cards and birth announcements and invitations for lots of showers and parties, and I really enjoy it. I even designed all the of the invitations, save-the-dates, response cards, programs, etc... for my own wedding. So these invitations are something I could easily have done myself. But we were on a time-crunch and I've been super busy with other things, plus mom and her friends had such good things to say about Invitation Box. I thought it would be easier than doing them myself. I knew I would spend a little more money, but I thought I'd at least save myself a little time.
I didn't save time. After scouring through tons and tons of different invitation designs (some impressive, some not), I finally found one I liked, then spent an hour or two trying to write my invitation and line up the typesetting. I haven't used other online invitation services, so I can't compare this experience to similar companies, but I can say that the interface didn't seem easy to me at all. It was very limited as far as font styles and sizes, I kept losing things when I made changes, at several points I had to start all over again, there was not way to ensure that text was centered, all in all I found it very cumbersome.
But that's not the worst part. The worst part was the cost, and all the additional costs I was going to have to incur in order to get the invitations in time. Lots of rush processing charges and expensive shipping fees. I quickly placed the order, once I finally had the invitation looking somewhat decent, and then immediately had buyer's remorse. To spend over $300 on invitations, not including postage, in this economy just felt unconscionable to me. So I called Invitation Box first thing the next morning to cancel the order, and after grilling me for a few minutes about why I was cancelling they finally agreed - for a $25 cancellation fee. Considering I would still be saving close to $150 by doing them myself, I agreed and hung up the phone.
Five seconds later I received an email from Invitation Box, informing me that a credit had been applied to my credit card account, minus the $25 cancellation fee and a non-refundable $40 rush-processing charge. A $40 non-refundable rush-processing charge for an order that hadn't even been rush-processed yet. A charge that I hadn't been informed of when I agreed to pay the cancellation fee. Thinking that couldn't possibly be the end of it, I put Sherri Cherry on the case. If anyone could get my money back for me, she could! But alas, even Sherri Cherry's persuasive charms were no match for the poor customer service of Invitation Box. Mom reminded the representative that she herself, plus a lot of her friends do plenty of business with Invitation Box. The rep didn't care. She didn't even offer to reinstate the order and waive the charges. Mom told her that none of us would be using Invitation Box again because the situation was so ridiculous. Rep still didn't care. She literally said that she didn't care about losing our business! I ended up starting over from scratch and doing the invitations myself for only a fraction of Invitation Box's $300 cost.
So I lost out on $65, and Invitation Box is losing out on who knows how many customers and potential customers. I really wish a could be writing a glowing review about them and their exemplary customer service right now, but I can't. Instead, I just hope this can be a learning experience. For anyone looking to have invitations done, save your money and find someone local who can help you out with them. Call me. Or use one of they myriad other on-line invitation services. Just don't use Invitation Box. And for anyone running a business, please take good care of your customers. Go out of your way to do what's fair and what's right, don't let them walk away unhappy, and for goodness sake, don't tell anyone, ever, that you just flat don't care about losing their business!
Oh, and here are the invitations I ended up with, in case anyone's interested. I'm pretty pleased with how it all turned out in the end.
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