This morning my son was leaving for a ski race in Vermont for the week, and he realized that he was nearly out of ski socks. We have a problem with an overly excitable yellow lab who chews socks when people come to visit us at our house. It’s her way of trying to get attention. So our inventory of socks diminishes quickly.  The problem with replenishing the supply is that the type of socks my boys and my husband have been wearing for the past couple of years costs $16 a pair.

But I decided to be a good Mom and order him some socks from his favorite sock company and give them to him on Saturday when he gets back from Vermont.  This sock company is run by ski racers, and they have had some high-profile celebrity endorsements from Olympic skiers (including Gold medalist Bode Miller), which makes their socks more appealing to my sons.

However I have now decided I will never do business with them again. This morning I tried to order six pairs of their socks from their relatively antiquated Web site that has a horrible shopping cart. Before finalizing my order they wanted me to fill in a little survey about how I had heard of them. My response, which included information about my sons’ familiarity with the brand through ski racing, and my dog’s habit of chewing socks, was evidently too long. So the survey form created a ‘fatal error’ after I had gone through all the steps of placing my order, filling in my address, my credit card information, and answering these survey questions. I was mad. So I called the toll-free number thinking I could just quickly place my order. A guy with an Austrian accent answered the phone. I said I wanted to order some of his socks. He said in a very stern tone of voice, “I am on the road. You must go to the Web site and place your order there.”

Now I am even more mad. I didn’t want to take the time or the energy to tell him that his Web site is horrible, and that I was calling because I got a fatal error when I tried to fill out the survey (which was to help him improve his business).

Too bad. This little sock company won’t get any more business from me.  And I’m going to give you the URL because I want you to see why it is worse to have a bad Web site for e-Commerce than to have no Web site. If you can’t afford a shopping cart that works, and if you can’t afford to have a person answering the phone (someone who isn’t ‘on the road,’) then you are better off sticking with bricks and mortar retail.

This is a link to the site:  http://www.fuxiracingusa.com/  I won’t say the company name out loud because I try not to use those kind of words. But I think the company name is another reason my sons liked the socks. I guess if they want them from now on, they’ll have to buy them on their own because Mom isn’t going to deal with this company any more.

I have a bad taste in my mouth about this company now. They didn’t know they were talking with the Maine PR Maven who would  blog about the experience and probably tell this anecdote to the other Moms in the base lodges around the country where we all hang out waiting for our kids to complete their races.

The experience drives home the importance of treating every customer ‘touch’ as an opportunity to ‘wow’ someone with your service.  And a bad shopping cart on an eCommerce site amounts to bad customer service, too. In this economy, you have to be great to keep customers coming back. 

Has this ever happened to you where you go through all the steps of placing an online order, then something goes wrong?  Don’t you just hate that?  Please tell me about it.

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