Customer Service

My apologies in advance this will come off sounding a bit like a gripe (because it is,, but as always there is a sunny side).

I am presently annoyed with an online bookstore whom shall remain nameless... More than a month ago as a surprise I ordered Digger a book I thought he would enjoy, thinking to myself the whole time how convenient to be able to surprise him at a time when it was just impossible for me to be able to get out and about. Well that was in September! The book in question has been charged to my credit card and it is yet to arrive. Now I know things get held up and I am a fairly patient person. The website in question had a note on my account saying stock was expected on September 27th, however I had to log in to their site to even be graced by this information. There has been not so much as an email to say stock has been delayed etc etc....

I am ever so sad to say this has happened to me in the handmade community also.
I recently purchased a birthday present for a friend, from a melbourne designer who I have admired for sometime. I appreciate just how much work goes into running your own handmade business so I was not concerned at all when a week later I had not received the items I ordered (they were listed for immediate postage once payment had cleared). But when the package had not arrived after two weeks without so much as an email to say thanks for your order I will pop your items in the post shortly, I decided perhaps it was the internets fault and perhaps this lovely lady had not actually received my order. So I sent a nice email to say I was in no rush but wanted to make sure she had received my order. I still have not had a response to this email. However the very next day my package arrived postmarked the date of my email. I did receive additional items that I had not ordered, I am assuming as an apology for the delay. Whilst this was a lovely gesture I would have been content with a quick email saying sorry things have been hectic but I will post this asap. Instead my email went unanswered and I doubt I will purchase from her again.

Its  unfortunate that bad customer service happens because it reflects badly on all sales people (it shouldn't but it does).
So much so that when we get good service we tend to rave about it because it is soo uncommon.

SO here is some service I do want to rave about.

I am pleased to say that in my dealings within the handmade community "bad service" has only happened to me once. In every other transaction and there have been many, I have honestly felt a sense of satisfaction from good service that I have experienced nowhere else. Even when you are purchasing something from someone on the other side of the world who you will never ever meet, it still feels like a very personal experience. Even more so when you buy at local handmade markets and get to have a chat with these amazing people, somehow I always end up finding out how they got into making their specific items and why (or maybe I am just nosey).

I wont let my one bad experience colour my view of buying handmade, I may not buy from that particular designer again but thats a different issue. But it served to remind me just how good I have had it with the handmade community to soo consistently have had excellent customer service that one insy wincey bad experience could stand out so much.
So whilst I started griping about bad customer serviced this post is really about just how good customer service is when you buy handmade....

and I remain one very very happy handmade shopper..

I don't think I can say it enough.. thank you to all the handmade sellers out there who have made shopping fun for me again.....

I hope all of your shopping experiences are happy ones.