As I remember it:
1. Scott's dad called on Tuesday morning looking for help cutting a material that his shop had never cut before. I spent about 20 minutes helping him decide on a cutter, made some suggestions about cutting strategies and got him started on the ordering process.
2. Since it was getting kind of late in the morning, I told him that, if he got his order in within the hour, we would TRY to get it out that day.
3. We got his order about 11:00 AM, before our nominal cutoff. Nonetheless, we were slammed that day, and there were too many international shipments and express orders ahead of him.
4. When his order did not go out, I contacted him to let him know that we were not able to ship it.
5. He asked how much it would be to change the shipping from FEDEX 2nd Day to Next Day.
6. Since he lives in a town only a few miles from a FEDEX hub I told him that I THOUGHT that it would only be $6.00 or so to upgrade the shipping. Again, I was very specific that I did not know the actual amount for certain.
7. He approved the upgrade to Next Day shipping .
8. We shipped the tools yesterday (Wednesday), but the shipping went from $14.00 to over $30.00 (which is absurd).
9. He called today wondering where his tools were. I tracked the shipment while he was on the phone and found that it was on the truck out for delivery.
10. As we continued talking, Scott got on the phone. It was clear that he was upset about the increase in shipping. I agreed with him that a $16.00 increase was ridiculous, but that is often the case with FEDEX. Since we only charge the actual shipping amount, it was pretty much was beyond our control.
11. He could not seem to understand why, if he had gotten his order in to us before the cut-off, the order did not ship the same day. Apparently he was not impressed by the fact that there were a LOT of orders ahead of his, from customers equally anxious to receive their tools. I did not , and do not EVER promise same day shipping because of the nature of our business. Nonetheless, we try, and usually succeed the meeting this goal.
To make this enumerated story shorter, I told him that I would refund the $10 (which we did) and suggested that he might want to go somewhere else to buy tools in the future.
I understand his frustration at not getting his order when he thought that he would, for the price he expected. However, I have also been in business long enough to know that even companies with the best intentions cannot always meet the expectations of every customer.
Could I have handled the call better? Absolutely! Anyone who has ever dealt with us know that we make a lot of effort trying to provide the best service possible to our customers, many of whom need significant help selecting tools. I do not know know if you have ever called one of the bigger tool houses and asked for application help, but I have. While most folks are polite and try to get you pointed in the right direction, they do not use the tools themselves and can only offer somewhat generic advice. We have a testing lab with a CNC router whose only reason for existence is cutting (or tryign to cut) any material that is thrown at us. That is why the customer service people here can usually provide pretty accurate guidance when it comes to using our tools. That is also why hundreds of customers have sent of samples of wood, plastic, animal bone, exotic metals, and composites for us to test.
In any case, that is what happened. I am sorry that it ended on such a sour note.