Hi Paizo Team,
I'm disappointed in the response I've received via email regarding my missing September Adventure Path Shipment (Hell's Rebels part 2). Through no fault of my own, there was no shipment in September. Subscription info showed my subscription for part 1 and the next upcoming shipment for part 3. Part 2: nowhere to be found.
So I alerted Paizo to this fact via email. The response: we've added Part 2 to your October shipment.
Sorry, but I work in Customer Service. This response is more than a little underwhelming. You've essentially said, to your customer, "I know we screwed up and didn't ship your subscription in September. To make up for it, how 'bout you wait another month?"
I then checked my downloads to see if I could access the pdf in the meantime. Nope.
Here's how a company that values a high level of service would have responded:
"We're terribly sorry this happened, let me get this shipment out to you right away! To compensate for the delay, I'm going to waive your shipping charge!"
If you want people to be excited about your products, understand that they're anxiously awaiting them and that telling them to wait an extra month is not an acceptable resolution.
Thanks for listening.
Sincerely,
Austerius
Hello Austerius,
What had caused the subscription to not generate the order in September was that the subscription had not had a shipping address attached to it. When the subscription order was placed there was a shipping address attached to the order, which allowed Adventure Path 97 to ship since it was generated by the order, but not to the subscription. Since it did not have a shipping address it could not generate the order. I attached the shipping address I saw on your account and generated the item that had been skipped because of that. In my reply I did not clarify that, I just let you know that the issue was resolved, and I should have.
When we got your email the October orders were already being authorized, so sending the missed issue along with the October volume meant it would be going out soon and that you would only have one package instead of two moving through the post.
Hello Austerius,
What had caused the subscription to not generate the order in September was that the subscription had not had a shipping address attached to it. When the subscription order was placed there was a shipping address attached to the order, which allowed Adventure Path 97 to ship since it was generated by the order, but not to the subscription. Since it did not have a shipping address it could not generate the order. I attached the shipping address I saw on your account and generated the item that had been skipped because of that. In my reply I did not clarify that, I just let you know that the issue was resolved, and I should have.
When we got your email the October orders were already being authorized, so sending the missed issue along with the October volume meant it would be going out soon and that you would only have one package instead of two moving through the post.
Diego,
I appreciate your attempt at a detailed explanation. Please understand though, the fact remains, I started a subscription and the first issue was delivered to me. There was nothing to alert me that my subscription was missing a shipping address. Most reasonable people would assume, since they received the first issue of their subscription, that everything was fine. That means that the error was on Paizo, not the customer. Either the system is set up in such a way as to allow what happened, or there was a glitch in the system. This is evident by the fact that issue 99 was scheduled to ship despite no action on my part, prior to me bringing up the issue.
In either case, it's October 6, and here I sit without my Adventure Path issue or my pdf. While you've provided me an explanation, you've essentially said, "we've fixed it and now you need to wait." Wait until when precisely? Don't you think it would be helpful to provide the customer with an expectation of when they will receive their missing product? "Sometime in October"?
Again, I do appreciate your efforts, but either you've received poor training or Paizo hasn't empowered you to provide good customer service. When a company inconveniences a paying customer, they need show accountability and rectify the matter in a way that benefits the customer.
I will be detailing this experience in a letter to Lisa Stevens and James Jacobs. I feel they will be surprised to know what their supporters are being put through and the amount of correspondence required to receive resolution in the event of a Paizo error.
Austerius
Customer Service Manager
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Austerius,
I'm sorry that your subscription got off to a rocky start! Unfortunately sometimes orders and accounts can slip through the cracks and we do not always notice that there is an issue. We are happy to help though and if you ever feel like an answer was not clear enough or if you need more information, I encourage you to reply to the response so we can clarify things. Especially during subscription shipping times, we are trying to respond to an increased number of requests and sometimes our responses can be a bit shorter or less informative than we realize. I apologize that you experienced frustration and confusion over this and I'll chat about this with the rest of the CS team to make sure we provide a bit more information.
Looking at the order as it stands, it is currently in the shipping queue to be leaving the warehouse soon. Because we are currently in the midst of shipping out the monthly subscription order, I can't give you a super precise timeframe, but since I know you've been waiting since last month I will try to give it a few nudges to make it out the door sometime today.
The shipping on the order is only for October's book. There is no charge for shipping of your September item.
Hopefully this extra information helps.
Sincerely,
Sara Marie
Austerius,
I'm sorry that your subscription got off to a rocky start! Unfortunately sometimes orders and accounts can slip through the cracks and we do not always notice that there is an issue. We are happy to help though and if you ever feel like an answer was not clear enough or if you need more information, I encourage you to reply to the response so we can clarify things. Especially during subscription shipping times, we are trying to respond to an increased number of requests and sometimes our responses can be a bit shorter or less informative than we realize. I apologize that you experienced frustration and confusion over this and I'll chat about this with the rest of the CS team to make sure we provide a bit more information.
Looking at the order as it stands, it is currently in the shipping queue to be leaving the warehouse soon. Because we are currently in the midst of shipping out the monthly subscription order, I can't give you a super precise timeframe, but since I know you've been waiting since last month I will try to give it a few nudges to make it out the door sometime today.
The shipping on the order is only for October's book. There is no charge for shipping of your September item.
Hopefully this extra information helps.
Sincerely,
Sara Marie
Thank you Sara Marie - I do appreciate the clarification and additional details. And I certainly do understand that errors can occur from time to time with any company or service. Thanks for reviewing the matter and I look forward to receiving the items in the near future.
Austerius