David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

You may remember a while back I blogged about my Studio order farce. Faster than I could blink, Sean Carter of MediaVest Manchester (Studio affiliate account manager) commented saying he would help chase it up.

Could things get any worse? Did I get my order?

Here goes...
 
Sean said in his comment "There would normally be some sort of delay based on the fact that 24Studio is a credit-based proposition, and they have to do a credit check before they can fully accept orders and start the delivery process etc. (The roses should be despatched with your order once everything has been verified) - obviously something has gone wrong with their normal process here".

That's not a problem and I was aware that Studio is a credit based retailer. The thing that they neglected to highlight was it could take a week to set the account up.

I sent an email to Sean with a quote that he liked: "I'm sure this is probably an unfortunate rare case but the problem for me is that it happened to me!". He replied saying "I have passed on your details to my contact, who is speaking with the customer service manager for you today – hopefully we’ll get a swift resolution to this.".

A couple of days later, Sean came back with "I’ve been informed that everything is in hand with your 24Studio order. The order has been placed, and the Roses are included. Apparently, the flyer you must have used to place your order did not have the correct reference number included to ensure that the roses were added automatically – but this has been resolved now".

All went quiet for a week then a couple of days ago, a knock on the door, and there was an 800g tin of Roses. The item in my order was to be shipped within 21 days.

A few days later and the postie brings along my order. Fantastic! Everything sorted itself out, I've got my chocs and I've got my item.

The excitement dripped from my face when I opened my order to find that someone cannot type properly and pressed 's' instead of 'd'.

I am quite meticulous but I doubted myself for a moment. So I opened up the order confirmation and there infront of me was the correct spelling.

So I've now got to wait another 14 days for a replacement.

So here's a rundown of all the problems I've had:

• Had to wait a week for an account to be set up - not displayed / displayed clearly on their website
• Roses by default were not included in the order
• Spent around an hour phoning Studio on an 0870 number with no compensation
• Received incorrectly personalised item
• Have to wait an additional 14 days on top of the 28+ already

Despite all the help that Sean has provided, I am out of pocket due to the phone calls and will have had to wait over 6 weeks for one item. By any standards, this is poor.