Hi guys! Today's post is different than usual. No pretty polish or nail art. Instead, I would like to share my worst experience with you. I took some time to think whether or not I want to post this, then I thought, if I could (and I have) share my good and wonderful experience then I should do the same with the opposite.
I often see the slogan 'support indies' used in instagram posts, and other social network, when someone posting their manicures using an indie polish. I have to admit, I am picky when it comes to choosing which indie brands to buy, and I only have a small handful of indie brands in my collection. I usually observe the brand for quite some time before I decided to try it, mainly because I have limited amount of fund to spend on polish and indie is quite expensive compared to mainstream brands. So when I decided to spend on something, I want to be sure that I get my money's worth, in quality and customer service.
Now before I get into what I want to share with you, let me stress that I am sharing my personal experience as a customer, not a blogger.
I had a custom polish made last year by one of a new indie brand (at that time), Colors by Llarowe, late last year. It's gorgeous, and I loved it so much. So did many of my friends. I decided that I want to share my beautiful polish with my friends, and one bottle is not enough to share with 4-5 people. Fill line drives me nuts, so decanting the polish is not an option. So here goes what happened..
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Feb 4, 2014. I contacted the maker and asked if she could make extra bottles of my custom.
Feb 10, 2014. I received a positive response, yes! But I have to sent a decant so she can recreate it, since she doesn't keep recipes for custom polishes.
There was a back and forth convo before we agreed on price and she gave me the address on Feb 12, I told her that I will mail the decant the following Monday.
Feb 17, 2014. I shipped the decant.
March 5, 2014. After a little over two weeks has passed, I sent an email asking if she has received my decant. I didn't get a reply.
March 11, 2014. By this date i hadn't received a response, so I tagged her directly in a fan group for the brand. She then responded saying that she did receive the decant.
March 13, 2014. I emailed her again to let her know how many bottles I want her to make. It wasn't discussed in the initial convo, and she also didn't ask about it when she received the decant.
May 3, 2014. I sent another email asking if she's still going to recreate my custom. There were no communication since she confirmed she has my decant.
June 13, 2014. I forwarded my email convo about the custom to Customer Support's email I found on the website, asking the CS to pass along my request to cancel the custom recreation. My reasons, other than because there were no communication, I found another polish(es) from the brand that looked very similar with my custom there's no point in having back up bottles, I just told my friends to get that polish if they liked my custom.
June 27, 2014. Found a different email address for Customer Support, didn't get a reply from the last one, so I forwarded the email convo again. Got a reply on the same day saying that she will pass along the message.
July 22, 2014. I emailed CS again asking about what happened to the decant I sent. Since it was cancelled, I assumed that I will be getting it back, but no one contacted me about it.
Aug 8, 2014. I didn't get a reply on my last email sent. So I emailed an asked again.
Aug 12, 2014. Received a reply from CS, apologizing for the delay in replying since they had just recently moved. Confirmed that the maker does have my decant and will take care in sending it back to me.
Sept 10, 2014. I didn't get my decant back, nor did anyone contacted me to confirm my return address or give me a tracking number. I emailed CS again and asked about it. I still haven't gotten a reply to this as this post is written.
Oct 6, 2014. Since I was getting nowhere in emails, I posted on their business page on Facebook. Basically asking the same thing, where is my decant? This post was ignored, though another post right above mine was replied.
Oct 8, 2014. I re-posted it again, really just copy/paste the whole thing, and added that I will keep posting until I get an answer. I finally get a reply saying that she has sent back my decant several months ago and she couldn't get the tracking info right away because the 'shipping computer' has closed for the day. She also apologized that CS didn't reply to me and offered to make me a sample if my decant 'got lost in the mail'.
I followed up the next day, but once again, I was ignored.
=======================================================================================================
So there you go. At this point I am certain that I will never get my decant back, nor do I care for it anymore. I was hoping that at the very least I will get an explanation that make sense or a sincere apology.
I realize that indie makers are a small business with very few employees, but it doesn't mean it's ok to completely ignore a customer when you haven't completed your end of the deal. Even a short reply would make a lot of difference on how I feel about the situation, and I'm not talking about reply from CS, that's not who I was communicating with in the first place.
Another odd thing that caught my attention, if they indeed have sent back the decant as they claimed, it struck me as weird that a business would send something out without any notification or tracking number given to the recipient. Especially with the no follow up after saying that she will find out about the tracking.
Now god knows what really happened to that decant, but lets say that they misplaced it.. Would I be upset? Yes, probably, and disappointed. But I know I would get over it and valued their honesty for owning up that they screwed up. Would I feel the need to bring up the matter here? Most definitely not.
People love supporting indies not only because of the creativity of each individual, but often I hear/read that when they do support a brand, it's because they love the customer support or the interaction the brands have with their customers. Like I said at the beginning, I was picky when it comes to choosing indie brands, but I have supported this brand since their first launch. So it is such a disappointment to have experienced this. I can only hope that I'm just the only unlucky one to have had this experience, and that no one else shared a similar experience.
I'm not writing this post out of spite or because I'm expecting to get some kind of compensation for this. I only want to share with you that this unfortunate and unacceptable thing happened. Yes, I was upset, and had I chose to write this a month ago or even a week ago the tone would have been different. I want people, my readers, to know that while it is a great thing supporting small businesses, but they are still in fact a business, and as customers, you deserved to be treated with respect. That's all I hoped for and didn't get. And for that, they have lost one customer.
If you have read this far, thank you for taking your time! I will be back posting pretty polishes :)
XO
Novi
I often see the slogan 'support indies' used in instagram posts, and other social network, when someone posting their manicures using an indie polish. I have to admit, I am picky when it comes to choosing which indie brands to buy, and I only have a small handful of indie brands in my collection. I usually observe the brand for quite some time before I decided to try it, mainly because I have limited amount of fund to spend on polish and indie is quite expensive compared to mainstream brands. So when I decided to spend on something, I want to be sure that I get my money's worth, in quality and customer service.
Now before I get into what I want to share with you, let me stress that I am sharing my personal experience as a customer, not a blogger.
I had a custom polish made last year by one of a new indie brand (at that time), Colors by Llarowe, late last year. It's gorgeous, and I loved it so much. So did many of my friends. I decided that I want to share my beautiful polish with my friends, and one bottle is not enough to share with 4-5 people. Fill line drives me nuts, so decanting the polish is not an option. So here goes what happened..
======================================================================================================
Feb 4, 2014. I contacted the maker and asked if she could make extra bottles of my custom.
Feb 10, 2014. I received a positive response, yes! But I have to sent a decant so she can recreate it, since she doesn't keep recipes for custom polishes.
There was a back and forth convo before we agreed on price and she gave me the address on Feb 12, I told her that I will mail the decant the following Monday.
Feb 17, 2014. I shipped the decant.
March 5, 2014. After a little over two weeks has passed, I sent an email asking if she has received my decant. I didn't get a reply.
March 11, 2014. By this date i hadn't received a response, so I tagged her directly in a fan group for the brand. She then responded saying that she did receive the decant.
March 13, 2014. I emailed her again to let her know how many bottles I want her to make. It wasn't discussed in the initial convo, and she also didn't ask about it when she received the decant.
May 3, 2014. I sent another email asking if she's still going to recreate my custom. There were no communication since she confirmed she has my decant.
June 13, 2014. I forwarded my email convo about the custom to Customer Support's email I found on the website, asking the CS to pass along my request to cancel the custom recreation. My reasons, other than because there were no communication, I found another polish(es) from the brand that looked very similar with my custom there's no point in having back up bottles, I just told my friends to get that polish if they liked my custom.
June 27, 2014. Found a different email address for Customer Support, didn't get a reply from the last one, so I forwarded the email convo again. Got a reply on the same day saying that she will pass along the message.
July 22, 2014. I emailed CS again asking about what happened to the decant I sent. Since it was cancelled, I assumed that I will be getting it back, but no one contacted me about it.
Aug 8, 2014. I didn't get a reply on my last email sent. So I emailed an asked again.
Aug 12, 2014. Received a reply from CS, apologizing for the delay in replying since they had just recently moved. Confirmed that the maker does have my decant and will take care in sending it back to me.
Sept 10, 2014. I didn't get my decant back, nor did anyone contacted me to confirm my return address or give me a tracking number. I emailed CS again and asked about it. I still haven't gotten a reply to this as this post is written.
Oct 6, 2014. Since I was getting nowhere in emails, I posted on their business page on Facebook. Basically asking the same thing, where is my decant? This post was ignored, though another post right above mine was replied.
Oct 8, 2014. I re-posted it again, really just copy/paste the whole thing, and added that I will keep posting until I get an answer. I finally get a reply saying that she has sent back my decant several months ago and she couldn't get the tracking info right away because the 'shipping computer' has closed for the day. She also apologized that CS didn't reply to me and offered to make me a sample if my decant 'got lost in the mail'.
I followed up the next day, but once again, I was ignored.
=======================================================================================================
So there you go. At this point I am certain that I will never get my decant back, nor do I care for it anymore. I was hoping that at the very least I will get an explanation that make sense or a sincere apology.
I realize that indie makers are a small business with very few employees, but it doesn't mean it's ok to completely ignore a customer when you haven't completed your end of the deal. Even a short reply would make a lot of difference on how I feel about the situation, and I'm not talking about reply from CS, that's not who I was communicating with in the first place.
Another odd thing that caught my attention, if they indeed have sent back the decant as they claimed, it struck me as weird that a business would send something out without any notification or tracking number given to the recipient. Especially with the no follow up after saying that she will find out about the tracking.
Now god knows what really happened to that decant, but lets say that they misplaced it.. Would I be upset? Yes, probably, and disappointed. But I know I would get over it and valued their honesty for owning up that they screwed up. Would I feel the need to bring up the matter here? Most definitely not.
People love supporting indies not only because of the creativity of each individual, but often I hear/read that when they do support a brand, it's because they love the customer support or the interaction the brands have with their customers. Like I said at the beginning, I was picky when it comes to choosing indie brands, but I have supported this brand since their first launch. So it is such a disappointment to have experienced this. I can only hope that I'm just the only unlucky one to have had this experience, and that no one else shared a similar experience.
I'm not writing this post out of spite or because I'm expecting to get some kind of compensation for this. I only want to share with you that this unfortunate and unacceptable thing happened. Yes, I was upset, and had I chose to write this a month ago or even a week ago the tone would have been different. I want people, my readers, to know that while it is a great thing supporting small businesses, but they are still in fact a business, and as customers, you deserved to be treated with respect. That's all I hoped for and didn't get. And for that, they have lost one customer.
XO
Novi
