Doing business with a company means you’re not just buying their products, but the experience of having their people, opinions and expertise, too.
Some companies really understand great customer support and service, others fall hard. The latter is the case with my recent (now only) experience with Canadian online menswear retailer, Frank & Oak.
My story is common: I ordered a couple of items, but one got lost in transit. I had full faith that customer service at Frank & Oak could help me track it.
I got a week of radio silence through their online form, and email. Resorting to Twitter, I finally got a reply a couple days later: “we’ll email you.”
Fast forward three weeks from their first reply and we’ve got two valuable lessons from their final correspondence:
I usually answer my email within 3-4 days, but since you sent 3 emails, the number of days showing since our last communication stayed the same. Please wait for a response next time, so that I don’t loose track of our communication.
1. Blame the customer: 3 emails in a 3 week span, of course it’s my fault.
2. Passive-aggresively tell the customer they’re annoying:
In 2013, most email clients order messages by time of receipt. My fault, I didn’t know that yours doesn’t.
Every bit of this Frank & Oak email makes it my fault. So much for making customers feel like a bad ass.
For examples on how to avoid bad customer service like this, you can read how Ryan switched to T-Mobile and had a great experience, or you can read how we turned our own disasters into gold. And whether you work on a support team or not, everyone should give Carnegie a read. You’ll make more friends, and probably more customers.
In the mean time, I’m going to find a place to buy a nice shirt.
Kristin
on 20 Dec 13At 37signals, our expectations for customer service/support are high, because we aim to deliver the best service. It’s always a let down to see that there are still companies that don’t see customer service the way that we do, but there are plenty of companies who do share our standards. Warby Parker and, of course, Zappos come to mind.
Speaking of, also check out Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh.
Conrad
on 20 Dec 13It’s always funny to see companies who put a lot into marketing only to have it completely undermined by a “We don’t give a damn” attitude in their customer service/technical support teams. There are so many outlets to get consumer goods, and many companies still don’t get that service is a huge differentiator for acquiring and retaining customers. Thanks for the heads up on F&O, Mig.
Ethan Song
on 20 Dec 13Hi Mig,
My name is Ethan and I am the CEO and co-founder of Frank & Oak. Thank you for sharing your personal experience. This is a situation that should never have happened. Providing you with awesome service is our only mission and I am disappointed that we were not able to deliver. The truth is that we have been overloaded in the last few weeks and have had a hard time keeping up. We were greatly understaffed, did not plan well enough and some processes failed.
We have great respect for all of our customers and strive to treat everyone in the same way we would expect to be treated. I’m sorry that we failed this time. I would love to get more feedback in order to make sure that this never happens again and also want to make you get the shirt you ordered.
Sorry again and thank you for trusting us in the first place.
Ethan
Bryan
on 21 Dec 13I had a similar problem occur with Huckberry where an item had not made it to me. Fortunately I had far different experience. I contacted them and not only received an email within a couple hours, but they immediately gave me a $5 credit before we even started researching the problem. Eventually everything was squared away and Huckberry was quick to respond to my emails every step of the way. Needless to say I’ll be a Huckberry customer for quite some time.
Harris
on 21 Dec 13Had a similar experience with Frank & Oak before although in my case it was a matter being given a perfunctory size and fit information by a rather disinterested sounding support “specialist”. The shirt I got turned out to not be true to size, the fabric quality was poor, and fit and finish was lacking to say the least (seams coming apart after the shirt was worn a few times, etc.).
Given the “support” I received before the sale I didn’t bother trying to have the issue fixed since I did not expect it would result in anything other than more waste of my time. Pity, since the reason I decided to buy from them in the first place was their promise of both better product and better experience.
Andrew
on 21 Dec 13Seems a bit mean to tell this tale to your very large audience. How long did you wait and think about what damage you might cause a small company made up of hard working people before you wrote this post? Moaning to your friends on Facebook is one thing, but shouting out to everyone here doesn’t exactly embody the Holiday spirit and seems to lack any empathy.
Luchia
on 21 Dec 13@Andrew – There is literally nothing worse than bad customer support, except when a company allows it to continue to happen. When you work for a company, you take on their values and business goals. If you, as an employee, cannot aid them in their quest for growth, then what is your business being there? Frank & Oak need a shout out and this is exactly what it is.
Rafi
on 21 Dec 13@andrew – Regardless of the poor handling of this customers issue, there is no excuse for the way the email was worded. Furthermore, brushing someone off on Twitter may work once in a while, but usually comes back to haunt you later.
Jeff Byrnes
on 22 Dec 13I’ve been a long-time Frank & Oak customer, and they’ve been slow to respond to support requests a couple of times, but they’ve always apologized for it, and tried to go the extra mile. I’ve had shipments to me go missing twice, and both times, F&O took care of things on their end, re-sending my items at no cost to me.
They definitely seem to be experiencing growing pains, and I’m happy to see their CEO reaching out here in the comments, looking to improve Mig’s experience, even if it is a bit after-the-fact.
@Harris, as for the fit & finish, I’ve had one pair of slacks from them not be up-to-snuff, but otherwise, I wear their shirts & pants day in & day out. A few pieces I have are just about a year old, and show all signs of living for quite a few more. I would hope your experience, and Mig’s, are outliers.
Gordon
on 22 Dec 13Just to present a slightly differing perspective, I’ve placed five orders with Frank & Oak over the past year and have been consistently pleased with the experience. I like the small touches in the shipments, the way they package the clothes nicely, the price and quality of the shirts.
I don’t blame Mig for being irritated by what he experienced, but I would urge others to not be put off by his interaction with F&O. There are a lot of far crappier companies out there.
Glenn
on 22 Dec 13I have to agree with Andrew. This blog has a long reach, and with power also goes responsibility. It’s different when David bashes on Microsoft because they are large enough to deal with it, but to single out a small company like this kinda seems mean.
Chris
on 22 Dec 13You’re not the only person facing these types of challenges with Frank & Oak. I dealt with their same frustrating lack of responsiveness during the past few weeks. Their supremely apologetic FrankHelps Twitter account was the only way I was able to track down my gear and then three weeks after the order I was told only half of the clothes were in stock. Rough first experience with them and likely the last.
Matt
on 23 Dec 13The worst part about their response, is that they used “loose” instead of “lose.”
Tony
on 23 Dec 13Depending on the kind of shirt you want, you might check out everlane.com. Great products, great price. Much less variety than Frank & Oak, but it’s all sourced and branded Everlane.
Kelli
on 23 Dec 13The 37 Signals blog often posts examples of exemplary customer service, design, and UX. To that end, I feel like it’s perfectly fair to share bad experiences as well. I don’t see this to be an attack on F&O, but rather as a “what not to do” post. However, I would be lying if I said the post wouldn’t make me reconsider purchasing from the company… not so much because of the original post, but because the CEO’s comment was laced with excuses.
Laure
on 23 Dec 13So this is why chat is such a good idea! Obviously, you can do chat badly, but when you actually have to talk to customers immediately, they are generally happier and you find out if they are feeling frustrated before they write a blog post that will screw your SEO forever… :) We’re trying to add more “best practices” articles at Olark- maybe we should consider some “worst practices” too.
Nate
on 25 Dec 13Yeah, I had the same experience with F&O.
I’d add a third point: Don’t encourage public customer complaints as the only way to actually get any reply. I didn’t hear anything for weeks after I sent my email, but I heard back within a couple hours after publicly reaching out over Twitter (and they miraculously found my email).
justinr
on 25 Dec 13not cool to call out a small company on a widely read blog. how can you distinguish b/w this being a one time error (which doesn’t deserve a public scolding) and a company that generally offers bad service. you can’t. not cool.
Pallav
on 27 Dec 13Well, Mig could’ve kept the company’s name anonymous if it was about showing an example of bad customer service.
But it is what it is.
This discussion is closed.