I have placed around 3-4 orders from Unique Corals and have always been impressed. I gave them great feedback on another forum and encourages friends to order from them. I just placed an order last week for delivery today. I didn't receive a shipping notice so I sent a chat message yesterday and today-no response. So I called and was told no shipments until next week!! How difficult is it to update your website? They ask when you want it delivered but doesn't mention any problems. People take off work to receive shipments so letting people know there is a problem would help.
While I was on the phone a friend wanted to get a coral for his tank so I asked if I could add it. I was told she was too busy take it right now!
Hi RJT,
You're 100% right! We did a very poor job communicating during our last sale. We did communicate about the hold on shipping...on every social media platform we use (email blasts, Facebook, R2R, Twitter) EXCEPT our web page! A total miscue on our part...Although you're an R2R reader not sure if you saw it mentioned on our forum here as well. I feel bad about the non-communication about the shipping..I'd like to say that the holidays had something to do with it, but that's a weak (although perhaps accurate) excuse...bottom line is that we did a less than stellar job during this particular juncture for a variety of reasons, none of which are any excuse that you should have to face the music for.
The person who indicated that she was too busy probably should have verbalized better the reason why she couldn't assist your friend..She's absolutely fantastic about service, so I think you caught her "being human"- for better or worse. It's very, very, very unlikely that she had anything more important to do at the time than help your friend- except perhaps, help another customer...If we were shorthanded when he called- that's OUR problem, and it shouldn't be our customers'...Nonetheless, I hope your friend was able to get assistance..If not, have him call me personally on Monday (818-570-0848) and I will help him. Make sure he references the incident!
We chalk it up to a "growing pain", an unintended, unacceptable result of doing too many things at one time, at a time when we were perhaps a bit understaffed....The lousy thing about a "growing pain" is that it's your customers who suffer...as happened with you. For that, please accept our apologies! The good news is- that like all of the feedback we receive- good and bad- we incorporate it into our customer service plans. If you've read our posts and ordered from us before (as you have), you'd know that customer service, communication, and feedback are valued above almost all else at Unique Corals, so when we screw something up, we fix it! We've built our reputation on exceeding expectations in every area, so correcting things is super important!
The amusing thing to me (if you call it "amusing") is that part of your dissatisfaction with your most recent experience was the result of a precedent that we have set- communication with each and every client before shipping- NOT occurring! Our reputation for customer service is generally outstanding, and we're very proud of it, as we have built our entire model around service. I guess if we look at it from the bright side, it's better to have a client disturbed about not receiving the great service he or she is used to, as opposed to no service at all! We LOVE that our customers have come to expect more from us! That's what we want! We love the many compliments we receive- and the occasional criticism when we screw up! These help us improve our service better than ever. Regardless, we've taken some new steps that I think are a bit- ahem- "unique"- in our industry:
1) If you notice, when you place an order, you can now ask for a requested delivery date. We will always do our best to honor that date, barring things like, weather, holidays, etc. We will still conform shipment with an email or phone call, however. We think this will help quite a bit in getting customers into the shipping que for a delivery date that works for them!
2) We've added a live chat feature to our website...Now, when you're ordering, have a general question, or just want to tease Joe or I, or any of our staff, you can simply start a chat and we can assist you with any issues you might have! It's kind of fun...a little bit geeky, but it's been very popular thus far. Now, keep in mind, while we do our best to man the chat all day during business hours, there are inevitably some times when we can't get back to you immediately...you can even leave a message in that instance...Not perfect, but cool! If it helps create a better customer experience, we're all over it!
Again, thanks so much for your feedback! We are pretty confident that the issue that you had is a one time thing, and won't be happening again with any degree of regularity (will we screw up stuff again- oh, yes...but hopefully not too often!). We hope that the visible measures we have instituted (and the not-so-visible ones, too) will eliminate future occurrences of problems!
BTW, check you PM for a message, ok? Think that you might find something there in your inbox!
Once again, sorry for the not-so-stellar experience you had during our sale. We'll do our best to fix things up and keep our high standards for customer service higher than ever!
Thanks for being a UC customer!
Regards,
Scott Fellman, Co-Owner
Unique Corals
