In Stitches. How To Complain To Customer Service.

S. R. Karfelt/The Glitter Globe

What do you want?

That’s the question you need to ask yourself before you contact customer service for anything.

Heads up, you’re not going to get what you want. If you got what you wanted, you wouldn’t have to contact customer service in the first place.

Now that your expectations have been lowered we can proceed.

Think of the best that you can hope for now that someone has your money and you didn’t get what was promised. That is your new want, wrap your mind around it and let's see what we can do, because you're important to us.

The Rules

• You are contacting a large impersonal corporation. They don’t know who you are or what you want. Provide all data.
• You will be speaking to the minions of a large impersonal corporation. They don’t know who you are or what you want either. Again, provide all data.
• Minions work in customer service. They know you’re not happy. Neither are they. Be polite.
• That doesn’t mean you can’t play with the minions. This is sucking up your time, so you might as well have some fun with it. Just remember you’re a minion too, so play nice.
• Now, what exactly is this All Data you need to provide?

·        If you’re emailing, provide your email within the body of the email. I know, right? Just do it.   

·        This goes for your phone number, address, order number, everything. If it seems redundant lighten the mood by providing your cat’s name and blood type for fun. It’s okay to lie about those; you don’t want all your personal data floating around the metaverse, do you?

About every four weeks I get a box of clothes from a company that offers personal shopper assistance to the masses. They’re called Stitch Fix. They know what I like, what size I wear, and they try to make me happy with five new articles of clothing that I can either keep or send back in the enclosed envelope. Easy breezy, super fun, highly recommend, especially if you detest shopping like I do.

After accepting all five articles of clothing last month, I realized the seam in the arm of my favorite new sweater was defective. It unraveled to the elbow within the first hour of wear. So I contacted Customer Service.

My holey sweater

Right off I knew that what I wanted was a new, unholy sweater, as in for the defective merchandise to be replaced. A sweater for a sweater, capisce? I didn’t get that, because when I said to lower your expectations I was just being positive. You’re not going to get that either. But I did get to know first Rachael and then Megan via email. So there’s that. My favorite exchange was this one:

Megan (Stitch Fix)

Jan 11 11:30 AM

Hi S. R.,

Thanks so much for getting back in touch. My teammate Rachael has the day off today so I will be helping you instead. I am so sorry to hear about the damaged sweater and I definitely understand your frustrations surrounding it! I took a look into our inventory and unfortunately, we still do not have an exchange available in any color. Again, I apologize for this!

Going forward, there are still a few options. I know you mentioned not wanting to return the sweater but being unsure if it could be repaired. If you would like to take it to a tailor and see if they would be able to fix it for you, we can definitely wait to make a decision until then. Or, as always, we can have you send the sweater back to us for a full refund.

Please let me know how you would like to proceed!

Regards,
Megan

Stitch Fix Client Support
Your Partner in Personal Style

For more information about Stitch Fix please check out our FAQ https://stitchfix.com/faq

Not being a very mathy person myself it took me awhile to realize that a few options meant I had one. I could return the sweater, but it wouldn’t be replaced. And a tailor? Really? Really! Doesn’t the fact that I have my clothes mailed to me in a box every month tell them how much effort I put into what I wear?

So I wrote this:

S. R. Karfelt

Jan 11 12:04 PM

Well, Megan, I’m a writer with a novel deadline and unless a tailor comes to my door in a box, that isn’t going to happen. I’ll send it back since you can offer me no satisfactory option. How do I proceed?

S. R. Karfelt

A Ragged Edge Writer

Action Adventure with a Twist

www.SRKarfelt.com

www.TheGlitterGlobe.com

Notice how I included links to my website and blog? The website was so that she could purchase my books in atonement for the sweater (it could happen) and the blog was so that she could read the blog about this later, because all is fair in love and war and all is game for writing fodder.

My method of communication was email with all the tails attached, so it wasn’t necessary to put my personal info in repeatedly, except for my writing links because, you know, they're my writing links!

And of course my holy sweater made a brief but mandatory Twitter appearance. My favorite thing about Twitter is most companies seem to pay better attention to your Tweets than they do your one-on-one contact. I wonder why that is?

Being polite doesn't mean you can't be honest.

My name is S. R. Karfelt, my cat’s name is Normal Bates and my blood type is

Norman Bates/The Glitter Globe

Glitter+. I’d give you my phone number too but we both know phones are for outgoing calls only. You can email me at Author@SRKarfelt.com or peek at my website at www.SRKarfelt.com or you could just leave a comment below and tell me how you cope with the frustrations of dealing with Customer Service. Maybe we could commiserate together.