Undelivered Emails + Shoddy Customer Service = Blog Post

Yesterday afternoon, we received a bulk delivery of 8 event inquiry Emails from prospective clients, which had been submitted through our Website. The only problem is, these Emails had been sent over the course of the past month; for whatever reason, instead of being delivered immediately, they were queued on our Email service provider’s server.

I was livid – and still am.

As a NYC team building and corporate entertainment professional, I have carefully built a strong reputation over the years for prompt attention and response, which clients of a premium brand such as TrivWorks expect and deserve. My first obligation to clients new and established is to provide excellent customer service – which, at an absolute minimum, means responding quickly to Emails.

I can only imagine, then, the frustration and anger of those people who have taken the time to learn about our services, contact us, but then not hear from us at all – let alone promptly, as promised. By not receiving & responding to these crucial inquiry Emails from prospective clients, we not only lose the opportunity to deliver a necessary team building service to companies requiring it, but our own brand reputation is tarnished.

I immediately reached out to our Email service provider, to confirm that there were no additional “lost” Emails out there, as well as to receive assurance that this wouldn’t happen again. Here is the reply I received:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for contacting Online Support. I understand you have an issue with your emails on the hosting coming all at once. We have tested this and the forms are sending the emails out very quickly. It is rare that emails get stuck in a queue but it can happen.

Please let us know if we can assist you in any other way.

Regards,

Ben K.

Online Support

Perhaps I should restate the facts here. As a business, perhaps the most important Emails we receive are those from prospective clients seeking to learn more about our services, request a quote, or schedule an event. Over the past month, 8 PEOPLE have sent such service inquiries which were not delivered until yesterday. 8 Emails. In one month.

Does that sound “rare” to you?

This is perhaps the laziest, most unacceptable customer service response I have ever received – topping even this one. Besides being short & dismissive, it completely fails to A) acknowledge the seriousness of the issue, B) offer any solutions, or C) provide useful next steps. If one of our clients had an issue with our services and I responded similarly, I would likely not be hearing from said client ever again – a lesson our Email provider will soon learn firsthand.

To those who submitted inquiries which were received late, please accept my sincerest apologies.