It will all make sense
Started the new job yesterday – did this. Jealous much?
However do also note the travelling laundry basket to the right. Not all fun and games eh? But at least I no longer have to do this on Saturday mornings or at 9 o’clock at night.
Happy New Year!
At the end of August I ordered just over €100 worth of schoolbooks from Schoolbooks.ie (I know, I know, I should have ordered them last JANUARY right?!)
The nippers started back in school on 30th August and no sign of the books. I couldn’t tell from the Schoolbooks.ie website whether they were to arrive imminently or not. Around this time I realised that I wasn’t the only customer whose books were missing but I took them at their word (to the media, mind, not me) that the books would arrive shortly. However at this time our (truly wonderful and sorely missed) childminder finished up with us so there was no one at home to receive our parcel. So I emailed them at orders@schoolbooks.ie and asked them could they deliver to my city centre office. 2 working days later I was worried about the lack of confirmation about this action.
Upon investigation online I realised that the situation was far worse than I initially thought. I also realised that I was dealing with people who were being a little loose with the truth claiming, for example, that they had contacted every single customer that was affected by what seems to be some sort of technical issue. Apparently I didn’t count as I have never received a single word of communication in any format from Schoolbooks.ie. as I’m trying to be nice I will refer to this as “not best practice” especially as we are repeat customers.
I continued trying to get through by phone and tweeting about the issue in the extremely vain hope that someone might respond.
At this point I emailed to cancel my order. I still have no idea whether they read or acted upon that email. I thought that the books may still arrive.
By the end of the first full week (9 days of school) we decided we couldn’t possibly send the kids back to school the following Monday without books. I legged it to Reads of Nassau st one lunchtime and despite the assistance of a really helpful staff member Reads didn’t have a single one of the books (please note I was looking for Irish language books only for my Gaelscoláirí).
En route back to the office I rang the National Consumer Agency who made all the right noises in a non-committal sort of way. They sent contact details to me but there was nothing I hadn’t already gleaned from the Schoolbooks.ie website. I asked the NCA whether they would be investigating the issue further but the very nice chap I spoke with couldn’t say at that point. He also reminded me of our rights as online consumers which I was very familiar with thanks to my last job. One point he made was that should the books arrive AFTER I had bought them elsewhere I could refuse delivery and Schoolbooks.ie would be obliged to refund. Good luck with that, Rosie!
Since then I have written to the Visa Chargebacks department in the hope that my money might be refunded. I finally received a complete refund on October 8th.
On September 21st I spoke about this during my usual monthly technology slot on Splanc, Newstalk’s Irish language radio show. Obviously I’m dismayed that I’ve been badly treated, annoyed that I was out of pocket but what bugged me the most is that with the application of a little cop and some cheap or free technology a lot of this could have been fixed. If they wanted to be old fashioned about it a few grand to a half decent PR company could have saved their business. What galls me the most however is that the MD’s attitude to his customers has at the least cost him business and at most cost him his business. While I have as little care for him as he obviously has for me, I think in these recessionary times (sorry) it is practically criminal to play so fast and loose with his staff’s livelihoods and other people’s money. When I got home that evening, lo! the books had arrived and are still sitting on our sideboard in their packaging.
So what you might say? Well I think that Schoolbooks.ie are in fact a perfect anti-case study. I would generally avoid using negative examples but Schoolbooks.ie tick all the boxes.
It’s easier to keep old customers than find new ones (or as the grown ups call it Retention vs Acquisition). We have bought our books from Schoolbooks.ie for the last 4 years, spending at least €50 every year. Schoolbooks.ie have always been poor at maintaining contact, not reminding us at crucial points in the year about themselves in order to ensure our repeated custom.
Join the conversation or they will bitch about you and not even behind your back! I already knew that Schoolbooks.ie were poor communicators, having not received much by way of correspondence from them over the last four years; a blessing you might say in these times of bulging inboxes. It’s possible that Mr. John Cunningham, MD of Schoolbooks.ie, thinks that he is being stoical by refusing to engage with customers on Faceboolk Twitter, Boards.ie and blogs like this. He may be of the mind that it will all blow over but Gawd help the poor sucker who has to manage their SEO in the future. Considering the company is unlikely to exist in the future
Social media is all media. A storm in a tweecup can quickly become national news because you can no longer presume that the busy bodies on social media are not influencing the busy bodies in national media. This story quickly became a running theme for back to school week on Joe Duffy’s phone in radio show. Schoolbooks.ie became synonymous with bad customer service and it will be some time before the market will forget. What a waste of a perfect URL.
Photo owned by H.C. Williams (cc)
My attention was of course arrested by the cover of last week’s Economist with the iconic shot of Rosie the Riveter proclaiming that We Did It! The basic gist of the three articles in The Economist is that the number of women in the workforce now equals the number of men. Good news indeed. However the articles go on to underline that these women are not represented in management roles across all sectors (although there are some exceptions in some sectors) and that they don’t, on average, earn as much as men. Nothing new there sadly. The briefing (which doesn’t seem to be available online) concludes the same as I have been concluding since I began my own childbearing and rearing: equality in the workplace will never occur until there is mandatory paternity leave. If I was a father expecting my third child I wouldn’t be looking at a 50% pay cut because I’m creating more consumers/ workers/ pension scheme payees. Of course I earn on average less than men even if I continue working as a result. This is escalating into a post for another day.
I also think it’s very ironic that The Economist chose to celebrate women in the workforce not six months after they published an article about polymaths in their lifestyle magazine which included a list of 20 living fabulous, clever, wonderful polymaths. All of them are men. How about helping me compile a list of living female polymaths? Suggestions in the comments below. My big problem is that the women I can think of aren’t famous for any of their amazing talents. Hmmm.