Real Life Example of How NOT to Handle Customer Email Inquiries

We weren’t big eBayers before we started selling on eBay. Now that we are active eBay sellers, we often first look there for items we are interested in buying. We are occasional eBay buyers, making purchases on eBay when we find what we are looking for at a price we like.

As eBay PowerSellers, we do find it fascinating how other buyers interact with us, the eBay customer. Sometimes we are pleasantly surprised. However, more often than not, we shake our heads in amazement.

This is the story of a recent head-shaking encounter with another eBay PowerSeller. All incriminating evidence has been removed from the below screenshots, to protect the guilty.

Very recently we had a need for something that we were introduced to by Marshall’s mother. We finally got around to ordering the item and sure enough, we found the best price on eBay.

And off our order went on the 3rd of December. The seller that we purchased from has a few thousand feedback with a 100% positive rating. We felt confident in our purchase. We even received a post-sale email from the seller (you can set this up in your My eBay>Preferences>Selling Notifications).

Here is the email that we received from the seller. Notice how it says that “most items are shipped the next business day following cleared payment” and “you will be notified when your purchase has shipped.”

Three business days later, after our instant PayPal payment, we had yet to hear from the seller regarding our shipment, as they had promised. So we sent the following email:

Notice how in depth our email is. We explained what the email that was sent to us said and that we had yet to hear anything regarding our shipment.

Fourteen minutes later we receive the following response from the seller:

We will start with the good news first . We were very impressed that it only took 14 minutes to receive a response to our email. Quick customer service is always a good thing! That is about it for the good news.

And now, the bad news…Here is what this eBay PowerSeller did wrong:

• The seller did not do what their post-sale email promised they would do. They did not notify us when our order was shipped. ALWAYS do what you say you are going to do!
• The seller’s response email was short, sweet and to the point. It was also a bit cold. They did not thank us for the purchase. They did not apologize for not doing what they promised they would do. They did nothing to make us forget their oversight. ALWAYS address your customer’s emails in a professional manner and admit when you are wrong. Turn a customer’s negative experience into a positive one. Make the customer want to do business with you again.

It looks like this PowerSeller could definitely benefit from reading our post entitled “How to Answer Your Customer’s Questions”. Good customer service is not rocket science. The old saying, “Treat others as you want to be treated”, definitely holds true when it comes to customer service. At times like this, short, sweet, and to the point is NOT the way to go.

Anytime you have any sort of customer contact, you should take the opportunity to build a relationship with your customer. It is much easier to have a bunch of lifetime customers than it is to go and find new customers.

Unfortunately, more often than not, we deal with sellers that are less than professional. For some reason, people think just because they are selling on eBay they can treat you differently than if you were buying from them in a bricks and mortar store.

We don’t understand why an eBay seller would have this mindset. It is as if you are not an important customer to them. As if they don’t care if you get a bad taste in your mouth when dealing with them. As if there is a long line of eBay buyers standing in line pounding down their door to purchase from them. As if one less satisfied customer really doesn’t matter in the long run.

Do yourself, and your business, a favor. Treat each customer as if they were irreplaceable. Correspond with them in a warm, professional manner. Treat them like a friend that you are glad to hear from. You might just be surprised what this gets you!

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