A couple of days back we received a complaint email stating that our shopping cart was showing a wrong total for items being purchased. Naturally, we were taken aback and investigated this issue and found that she was right! In fact, it was a bigger issue. Our store was doubling the total amount regardless of what you purchased!
This was memorial day weekend. Our programmers who can troubleshoot and solve this issue were gone for the weekend. We did not know what to do and we were scrambling. We thought it was a hacker attack. Immediately, we started looking for outside resources to see who we can get to fix this issue. Luckily after about 20 mins of searching, I found a lady in Missouri who seemed very knowledgeable about these technical issues. After talking on the phone for about half an hour, we had narrowed down the issue to one specific file that got changed recently. Luckily, we got it fixed within the hour!
It appeared that our programmers had mistakenly altered this file. We had not done any changes, but while working on something, they mistakenly changed this file. Mistakes happen. To err is human. However, once mistakes happen, how we respond is even more important. Here is what we did:
- Immediately, figured out how many previous orders were affected with wrong billing. We alerted the accounting person to send them a refund and place personal calls to them letting them know we are truly sorry this happened and that we will be refunding them the excess amount.
- Alerted the customer who complained to us and let them know that we had fixed the problem. We invited her to come back to our store.
- Alerted our programmers about this mistake and asked them to double check this thoroughly and put procedures in place so that it doesn’t happen again.
We continue to figure out what else to do with regards to this issue. We want to let our customers know that we are committed to serving our customers and ensuring fair dealings with everyone. It is the only way we will ever work. It is encouraging when our customers respond and reinforce our belief.
By the time this is posted, here is what has happened:
The customer who complained to us has since completed the order with us. We are happy to see that. Thank you.
The customers who were affected have already received their refunds. Thanks to our accounting department.
The programmers are already double checking on why this happened and trying to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Thanks for your hard work.
Knowing we accomplished these, we can now enjoy the rest of our memorial day.