In Times of Error, Give Emotional Assurance
Spotting and resolving pain points of an online purchase gone awry
The story I am sharing is written out of tough love, curiosity, and in the hopes for a better experience as a customer.
A few weeks ago, I decided to buy a series of bookshelves for my apartment that is overflowing with stuff. To go with the shelves, I bought a series of lighting accessories — three mini-spotlights to be installed on the shelves, one floor lamp, and one tabletop lamp. I was in the mood for re-decorating, even though empty space in my 51 sq.m. 1BR is, admittedly, limited.
I went to the a general furniture store to check the stock for the shelves that I wanted. I asked one of the staffs if the spotlights could be installed with the shelves (The answer was yes, they can). I went to the lighting section and came across the lamps that I didn’t know if I had space for, so I asked a staff what the return policy was. He said that customers get a 365-day period to return the fixture, but not the LED bulbs. I went home, and put in the order for delivery within the week, adding the installation service to save time and ensure quality.
Then, I eagerly waited for my life to change magically through tidying up. Unfortunately, the Gods of user journeys had other plans.
The morning of the delivery day, I had given the company a call, to see if they can give me an estimate of when the delivery might be coming by. No promises were made except that I will get a call an hour before ETA. When the delivery period arrived, 1–4 PM on a rainy Saturday, I was sitting at home patiently waiting, drinking tea, and clearing space, both physically and mentally. I was excited to show off my books, paintings, art toys, plants, and other random decorations I collected over the years. And though it was raining, I was optimistic that Bangkok weekend traffic will be nice.
One o’clock came and went with the medium drizzle outside my window. Two o’clock, then it’s 3 and there was no call. In my anxious logic, I thought that the delivery might have been postponed, since 3 + 1 = 4 PM which is outside the delivery window. Close to 4 PM, I got a call from the delivery team saying they’re arriving — 10 minutes away — which turned out to be an optimistic estimate given the rain plus traffic apocalypse. At least 30 minutes later, I called the customer service back, to ask about the status and right as I got through to the representative, the delivery person called to say that they were downstairs, checking in to the building security.
The two-person delivery and installation team came up with an elevator full of cardboard boxes which they placed right in front my door. They quickly got to work and with remarkable speed, there were able to put up the entire shelf that had 16 separate SKUs in about 2.5 hours. They couldn’t, however, install spotlights that were supposed to go on top of the shelves. It wasn’t a part of the installation option, they said, and anyhow, they weren’t equipped to. I was surprised and a little annoyed, but they were right: in my hurry, I didn’t realize that there was no option to pay for the lights’ assembly when I ordered online. I needed to contact customer service again, soon.
After the shelf was installed, I got to work on the floor lamp, even though I knew I had to work hard to find a spot for it in my living room. Putting it together was more stressful than exciting; I didn’t want to damage the chrome-plated surface of the structure. When I was done, I really couldn’t find a place for it but, oh well, there’s always the return policy.
When I called the customer service, for what felt like the 10th time that week, I was once more surprised to find out that products that have been opened cannot be returned at the store and that even some light fixtures (e.g. the spotlights that weren’t installed) cannot be returned because, according to the representative, they cannot check if it has been used or not. The rep’s tone was even, unsympathetic, as if the person was reading the terms that I should have known, like there was nothing they could help me with, truly.
I had to explain that the reason for returning these items in the first place was because of the information provided to me by multiple staffs at their company. After a few more passive aggressive notes on my end, the conversation came to an unsatisfying conclusion: I could bring in the assembled floor lamp to be evaluated for a buyback and the spotlights and tabletop lamp (both unopened) can be checked at the store to see if they can be returned.
At this point, I was fed up with the process, staring down the lack of emotional assurance that my money was well spent and the lack of confidence in any of the information I was privy to. I just wanted to enjoy decorating the shelves, but now I have to jump through the hoops of the holy Terms & Conditions. So I took the unopened lamp and the spotlights to the store closest to me for the inspection (I kept the LED bulbs at home, unused, because I was told the conditions before I made the purchase). Fortunately, the customer service there was understanding, and after reviewing the case file, assured me that it was obvious the spotlights weren’t open. This was the only time that I felt that I was taken care of.
Unfortunately, the feeling was fleeting. Because the online order was fulfilled by a different physical store, the customer service could only offer store credit or I’d have to fight traffic and emit CO2 for 1.5 hours to travel to that store to get credit back on my card. Which I thought was a curious policy for a company that has streamlined the online ordering system to a T.
I put my foot down, and asked him to find a way to get me credit without going to said store. He said it’s possible for their back office to ship the stuff across the stores but I will have to wait at least a week for the process. I said that it was fine, and I took photos of the unopened boxes with the case numbers in case of future mishaps. I left customer service, feeling somewhat happy at that moment to have cleared the unneeded items but overall rather dissatisfied by what I went through to finally realize the value proposition of convenience, accessibility, and minimalism that I was looking for in this brand
As a design strategist, of course, I saw my online shopping experience through the structure of an emotional journey map. In my mind, I was the pretty much the ideal customer (a totally biased truth that I will never be able to overcome): I thoroughly gathered information, repeatedly checked my assumptions, quickly made a purchase, and obediently — but begrudgingly — followed instructions. And I was ultimately let down by the discontinuity and imprecision in the customer-facing information stream and the lack of assurances post-purchase.
A number of aggressive provocations bubbled up along the pain points in this mental journey map:
- Could the delivery team have called ahead to say that the traffic is bad and that they will be quite late? Surely. I made a previous order where the team called first thing in the morning, even though the delivery slot wasn’t until afternoon (and the delivery was completed before the appointed time).
- Was it my responsibility as a customer to double-check the returns policy for the fine prints? Perhaps. No excuses here, but it didn’t feel good either to have made a decision based on the incorrect words of the company.
- What could the service representative on the phone have done to appease the situation? As I was sharing the story leading up to the return, I was plenty clear in my stern tone that I was not happy with any of the wrong information that led me here. And yet, the staff just threw checkboxes back at me over the phone. I didn’t feel the attempt to understand or empathize with my situation.
- Could I have done something differently? I don’t know. The strongest complaint I made was to tell the customer service to leave feedback to the staff in the lighting department that his advice cost me an unnecessary spending. It felt like leaving an anonymous comment in a comment box.
This year alone, I spent close to THB 100k (USD 2800) with this company and a part wished that that meant something in this capitalistic relationship I have with them. I wasn’t expecting the royal treatment, but I wasn’t happy with this disengaged, non-sympathetic approach either. The Terms & Conditions is there to protect the business from unreasonable demands, sure, but not at the expense of the feelings of the customers when something went wrong, even if it’s by a genuine mistake.
I’ve advised many clients of mine that sometimes, some of the best moments of connection comes from a good resolution of a mistake to the best of our abilities.
When something goes wrong in a customer journey — such as when my delivery was late — the first thing that comes to my mind is whether there is a process to catch it.
Where can the customer share their thoughts?
Did anyone ask the clients how they felt throughout the purchasing process? When it became clear that the journey did not meet the clients’ expectations or if a mistake was made, I might look for a process that can focus the intention and kick-start resolution.
Was feedback taken seriously when given?
Who is responsible for communications and who can make the decisions when policies are involved? Escalation is key here, where any sort of complaints or errors along an ideal journey is acknowledged, flagged for future reference and surfaced at different touchpoints.
How are we acknowledging the problems in the situation with the customer?
What are the options that are immediately on the table? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel, and what does that look like? I would find ways to situate customers in the intention of resolution, assuring them that they’re in good hands, that we want to help without over-promising.
For my own situation, I could confidently say that a series of small reassurances along the way, delivered with a personal touch, would have made me feel less anxious. Though I felt fine by the end when the service staff helped smooth the return with a few confident words, the customer journey should not just rely solely on the efforts and intuition of talented individuals, but rather on systems and processes of assurances (e.g. asking feedback on the delivery, following up on customer service complaints). The many touch points along the journey should work together to create a worry-free experience, especially if something went wrong.
As clichéd as it sounds, excellence in communications forms the backbone of a good, empathetic customer-centric journey. At the most nitpicky level, this is filtered through the tone of voice and the language used over the phone, and the explicit acknowledgement of the problem. Zooming out, this might mean that there is a regular update about open cases that are in progress, via text, email, or even a phone call.
Though I understand that this must be a rare and rather unserious case to resolve, I believe that it is highlights a potential opportunity for all e-commerce business (or ones with multiple modes of interactions with the customers). To me, the lesson here is that each touch point with the customer could be designed to both catch any errors and assure the customers that things are — or will soon be — going the way we’ve designed it to. And this could be easily achieved through an emotional journey map.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading and I would love to hear your thoughts. Let me know if I can help you and your organization put into practice in human-centered design principles.
