so i've dealt with customers who had broken cookies before but this is a first i got a nasty email from a customer who ordered at the last minute saying the cookies were stale and nobody liked the taste . i don't do sugar cookies so they are not soft maybe she mistaken this for being stale . i don't know what to do i told her they are not sugar cookies and if she was expecting that taste and i apologized but i literally do not have the money right now to refund her .
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Oh, so sorry to hear this. Is she asking for a refund? Do you feel she is owed one - perhaps she's just fishing for a freebie as some (bad) customers are known to do? If you, in your heart of hearts, feel she has cause to be dissatisfied or you would like to mitigate any possible negative word of mouth, then perhaps you can offer a replacement order instead of a refund? It might be worth it, because negative word of mouth is known to carry further than positive.
No worse feeling than an unhappy customer...since you don't have the money to refund her, offer her a set of cookies for a future order - maybe for Thanksgiving...since sugar cookies aren't your norm, maybe offer to do a sugar cookie for her as an alternative that she might like...I would give her the absolute best customer service EVER...since just like Julia said, bad news travels FAST! You don't need any bad PR. So sorry that you are going through this...it really is a miserable feeling, but just remember, for every bad customer you have, there will most likely be 200 happy & fantastic ones...Don't let this get you down and steal your joy.
You have my sympathies! Dealing with rude/unreasonable/whiny customers is the hazard of owning a business. Eventually, anyone selling anything will come across a customer who won't like what they paid for. Looks like this lady is that customer for you! I think it's so important to have guidelines set up to handle these kinds of problems, because they are going to happen. Decide what works best for you and your business, and post those guidelines where your customers can read them when they place their order. You'll probably still get people who won't be satisfied no matter what, but trying to anticipate the complaints ahead of time and charting a course of action will reduce the chances of you being blind-sided.
