teva ecommerce’s utter lack of competence

I love Teva sandals, particularly Mush flip flops. My dad has a pair of Teva’s for walking—he said last year how much he likes them. So, for father’s day, we went to Teva‘s website to send him a gift certificate. Piece of cake. Automatic. One would think. This was June 17.

I’m now on the phone with Teva yet again (third call), and it’s now ten days later, and they still haven’t figured out how to send a gift certificate via email. This was supposed to have been taken care of on Monday, June 19, then again on Thursday, and now, today, we’ll find out if the third time is the charm. Or not. The guy said he is going to personally walk upstair to the woman, Jeana or Gina or something like that, who is responsible for sending out gift certicates (why they need a PERSON to do this is beyond my fathom—with all the stores we run, email gift certificates are sent out automatically) and stand over her while she sends it out to my dad, along with a mea culpa from Teva for screwing up our father’s day present. That promise was made at 2:34 pm edt—I wonder when (or if) I will get a copy of what they sent or if I will have to call yet again. This is not rocket science—it’s simple web technology that’s been around for, oh, more than ten years ...

The first time I called, I was told there was a hold on the order because the name of my street did not fit into the box. I don’t quite know where this bullshit came from since my address was prepopulated in the form as I had already logged in to my account. I asked why this was even relevant, since this order was not being shipped to me (let me mention, not quite two months ago I successfully ordered online and received my Mush flip flops), but was supposed to be delivered via email to my dad. Never got an answer to that one.

The second time I called, Thursday, I was told that Teva had instituted a new payment system over the weekend and when the customer service crew walked in on Monday morning, they discovered not only was there a new system, but that it didn’t work and that not one order was processed. “Ohsosorrysorrysorry ... we will get your order out right now, along with an apology and by the way you get 50% off your next order as an apology from us, just mention it when you call.” Yeah, right.

Third call, today,  ...

... as mentioned above. No explanations this time, just the guy reading the memos on the screen, saying “There’s something about a hold ... ” I did not swear, or yell, just told him that I am super angry that Teva can’t get it’s act together enough to send out an email with a discount code in it.

Which is pretty good considering I’m really tired because I had to get up early in order to take our Ford Focus back to McMahon Ford so they could fix something THEY screwed up—an oil change, they messed up an oil change. We took it in a couple of weeks ago for the standard oil change, checkup and all that. Sunday, Stanley had it on I-95 and noticed it was blowing smoke. He suspected either a coolant leak or too much oil. After it cooled down, he checked. It had more than a quart too much of oil in it! Apparently, they don’t check things at McMahon Ford before they give it back—even Speedy checks the levels before giving it back, and Ford charged considerably more for the oil change than Speedy does.

We wouldn’t have had McMahon Ford do the oil change except that we had to take the Focus in because the right front spring broke. Came off the rocker panel or some woo-hoo that I don’t want to understand (that’s Stanley’s job). Fortunately, that was still under warranty, since it’s not supposed to happen for at least 100,000 miles or until the day after that warranty runs out, whichever comes sooner. So, since we were there and because we’re going to Michigan next week, we decided to just get it all done at once.

Well, it’s been 30 minutes and still no cc of the gift certificate Teva is supposed to be sending out. I guess they have to build a new computer in order to do it ... I’ll give them another 30 minutes before I call for the fourth time.

TEVA UPDATE: Well, it’s nearly two hours later and nada, zilch. I did call back, and talked to a rep named Keith, who said he’d run up and ask what was going on. He did, and told me that a manager is looking into it, that she would call me when she got to the bottom of it, blah blah de blah de blah ... it’s going to cost them more in customer service time than they’re going to earn from the gift certificate—that can’t be a good thing.

For what it’s worth, Teva is owned by Deckers Outdoor Corporation (DECK: nasdaq), purveyors of Simple and UGG shoes as well as Teva stuff. If the company can’t even get a simple transaction right, I don’t think I’ll be adding their stock to my portfolio. Oh ... I just looked at the UGG site—a big missing image and broken section on THAT shopping page (women’s stuff)—guess they don’t bother with quality assurance. Or maybe they don’t think what people think or experience on the branded websites affect people’s perceptions of the company and its products and so aren’t putting any money into web development. Hard to know what’s going on.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/27/06 at 10:30 AM
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