Need advice on unhappy customer

[TheFamilyJewelsWI]

This past week I made an error on a custom order. I corrected the order and paid $22 to have it shipped overnight. The package should have been delivered yesterday but was not. The customer now wants a refund. Her package will arrive tomorrow. She was happy with me sending it overnight. Should I issue a refund?

[maydaylabels]

Did she need it for a particular event?

[StuckOnSilver]

So you missed the "ship by" deadline and made up for it by shipping overnight?

[TheFamilyJewelsWI]

It was for her Mother's Birthday.

[maydaylabels]

Did she not get it in time?

[TikiBotanicals]

Hi Mary!

You have a cute shop-- I love the baby's footprint keychain!

I'm not an expert seller (maybe one day). I can understand why she was disappointed not to get her order in time for her Mom's birthday and you certainly made an effort to correct the situation by offering the overnight shipping.

If this happened to me, I would probably refund the customer to prevent negative feedback. But to make up for some of the financial loss, I would send the customer a small gift card ($5-10) for her or her mother to use. That could encourage a repeat sale and turn this lemon into some lemonade.

Hope you have a wonderful day!

[TheFamilyJewelsWI]

Thank you Tikibotanicals!
The product should have arrived on time but the post office screwed up. Fortunately, I get my postage cost reimbursed. Even though that was not my fault, I refunded the customer to prevent negative feedback. I have all 5 star reviews so this bothered me so much. I am trying to forget about it and move on. That is hard for me to do. Thanks to those who responded.

[StuckOnSilver]

I hope she returned the item for the refund.

We can ask Etsy to remove bad reviews due to post office error. Once I received a bad review due to high import tax and Etsy removed it.

[TheFamilyJewelsWI]

Bev, how do I do that? She did give me a negative review, my first ever in 6 years!

[SageNThymeDesigns]

Bummer of a situation, but I think you handled this with grace. Since she does mention the delivery method as a challenge in her review I would try to contest the review. Actually, I contest pretty much every negative review just to see if Etsy will make it go away.

You just click 'report this review' tab under the review and can write your reasons for contesting the review. Just make sure you read Etsy's terms for removing a negative review and speak specifically to that term in the text, the point you need to make is that the mail carrier failed to deliver on time and that caused the package to be late.

After challenges like this I've adopted the philosophy that I stand by my shop policies and I don't offer refunds to avoid a negative review. People who leave a 1 star review are a special breed and usually really pissed off, sometimes there's really nothing you can do (as in this case) to make everyone happy.

I think you handled this challenging customer very graciously. I'd recommend contesting the review and then having a nice cup of tea (or better yet a glass of wine) to help celebrate the fact that there's something more you can do other than let it go. One nasty in a sea of 300+ very happy people is 0.3%, that's an A++++ in anyone's book!

[maydaylabels]

I think your response is fair enough and outlines the situation. You shipped the wrong item, shipped the new item Express, it didn't arrive on time, you refunded the customer, case closed. Still sucks for her (she didn't get the present she'd planned for) so I can see why she's upset, and sucks for you (you went to all that trouble and it still didn't make it on time), but sometimes transactions just don't work out.

[StuckOnSilver]

You certainly don't have to go into the gory details (it is Friday the 13th after all!) Just the post office didn't deliver the item as guaranteed.

[TwistedKnickersInc]

The review reflects poorly on the buyer not you. It shows you really tried to make it right. Plus there is nothing wrong with a belated birthday present especially when it is custom made.

[TheFamilyJewelsWI]

Thank you Joanne for the awesome response. Made me feel really good!! I will look into getting it removed.

Thanks again! You made my day!