Disappointed with my sale experience

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Mikkei4
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Re: Disappointed with my sale experience

Post by Mikkei4 »

It appears that I was very fortunate to be unsuccessful placing orders for any watches in the recent sale, although I did order 1 strap and it came quickly and in perfect order.

That CW has significantly oversold the quantity of watches is due to either a dreadful stock system, total lack of care and organisation or a combination of both. Then they send an apology that basically says “we’re useless at our job so you don’t get the watch you ordered but just contact me if I can help you again”. Yeah that will retain your customer base.

I’ve worked for a small eBay based business selling sports goods and the stock is varied and extensive, amounting to several hundreds of some items and thousands of others in different styles, colours and sizes. The quantities of stock were ALWAYS correct because we spent the time and took the care to make sure to count the quantities and enter these correctly initially and that any returns or exchanges were dealt with correctly.

Also the items picked and sent out are checked at least twice before going to post. Plus the eBay system can add and subtract correctly. We had Zero failure rate from March 2016 to May 2017.

Why is it impossible for CW to achieve this ?
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tempus fugit
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Re: Disappointed with my sale experience

Post by tempus fugit »

Tyke wrote:Customer care left the building when a certain lady packed her bags and left........Always figured she was covering up the cracks - now yawning chasm's
Harsh. Possibly fair. Time will tell but agree not looking good right now.
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Re: Disappointed with my sale experience

Post by robert75 »

reggie747 wrote:Solution = Stop having sales and deal with stuff accordingly.
We're all very much aware of how much of a pounding CW takes in the watch world for their "sales" frequency anyway.
Absolutely spot on. Quit the nonsense sales every 5 minutes and go back to selling at reasonable prices instead of over inflated ones then trying to shift stock every other month.
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Re: Disappointed with my sale experience

Post by SNAFU »

It is disappointing to see such major blunders happening so consistently. I ordered a watch from the sale, placed the order on the 4th watch didn't ship until the 11th, still not arrived yet (in Australia so not unexpected there) but now i'm wondering if the watch I ordered will even be what I get.

And yes a we're sorry we screwed up is quite hollow without any attempt to rectify said screw up. This is my first purchase direct from CW (bought my C60 chrono used from WUS) and thus far not overly impressed with the standard of service. Given the high number of mistakes someone needs to seriously take a look at their sales processes and make some changes. Not hard to run a live inventory on a correctly set up website.
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Re: Disappointed with my sale experience

Post by RustyinRochester »

Here is what I have difficulty understanding--CWL was an early internet only vendor and they have been at this for some time, yet seemingly the most basic transactions--selling and delivering correct and proper products often seem to escape them. I have been awaiting two watches for almost two weeks and one just arrived in the US after being dispensed 7 days ago. Where has it been all that time? And the other watch still has not been shipped though it was purchased the same day as the other. I hope that the shipment has both orders although I am starting to fear for the worst.

The last watch that I purchased from CWL was in 2015 and under my account order status, it shows that it is still processing despite the fact that it has been on my wrist for years. Is this a case of the company not wanting to hire and train staff to perform these basic functions of the business? Do they not pay enough to attract people who can perform these basic business operations? Or is the internet only model a failure? There seems to be a lot of the left hand of the business not knowing what the right hand is doing.
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Re: Disappointed with my sale experience

Post by Frankcastle123 »

I can tell you that there's definitely a training issue. Here in the states the customer service has very little knowledge of the product and their policies, they can't really answer anything so they usually transfer you to the England office.

If you're not going to take the time to train your staff then why even have a separate customer service center for the u.s.




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DEV.Woulf
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Re: Disappointed with my sale experience

Post by DEV.Woulf »

I think it's fair to say that while the company has grown to a place that most micro brands could only dream of, there is still a lot to improve when it comes to quality control.

The knock against the frequent sales I can let slide; they're clearing out old stock, and a lot of companies do this. They really do need to improve the monitoring of in-stock quantity. I see that a lot when it comes to big brand sport shoes sales. It's always a bummer to see people get dissapointed.

Remember my Makaira debacle? Sending wrong or defective items has been happening awhile; without improvement.
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Re: Disappointed with my sale experience

Post by Vwatch »

I can't imagine as an so call online retailer screw up with their website, the website is the only windows for them to sales and they should not have this kind of annoying issues. over 10+ years, i think CW online website is still not ready yet, and handle properly.
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Re: Disappointed with my sale experience

Post by Robden »

Maybe a new "Website Designer" is needed. My account shows six items, five of which read "processing." These five items have all been delivered.

Surely when they email me to say that order no. xxxxxx has been dispatched, that should be automatically linked to my account and recorded as such.
Likewise, as one item is ordered, it is automatically linked to the overall stock amount to make the adjustment.
Even I can do that on my spreadsheets..................and "No" I don't want a job thank-you. :)

Rob....
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Re: Disappointed with my sale experience

Post by suicidal_orange »

Clearly they are running a different system for despatch and orders/stock as addresses with accented characters show fine on the site but the address label chops them off and as you say, despatching doesn't update order status.

I wouldn't mind the job - there are so many little things that there would be lots of job satisfaction to be gained from fixing them and surely some without huge amounts of effort. Can't say that about my current job...
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Re: Disappointed with my sale experience

Post by nbg »

My observation from reading this thread, the longer "Sale Time" one and others over the last year or so is that CW does seem to have a problem with CS. I haven't added by also saying about the QC as that in itself is an integral part of good CS.

Wera was great, but to a certain extent she was often sorting out and correcting the initial poor CS when the watch was shipped (or not shipped due to poor stock control!).

A simple example of good CS to rectify a mistake?

Out to dinner last night, ordered the frangipani tart as dessert. They brought me the salted caramel panna cotta instead, which I decided to eat as it looked very nice. When the restaurant manager cleared our plates I said the panna cotta was great and he immediately realised it was the wrong dessert and apologised.

Without any prompting from me, the cost of the dessert was deducted from our bill. End result a happy customer who has booked again for Friday. :)

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suicidal_orange
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Re: Disappointed with my sale experience

Post by suicidal_orange »

Mmm free dessert :thumbup:

Unfortunately giving away high value items that could be resold is not the same as giving away a dessert you'd have to bin anyway, though I daresay no-one would complain!
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golfjunky
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Re: Disappointed with my sale experience

Post by golfjunky »

robert75 wrote:
reggie747 wrote:Solution = Stop having sales and deal with stuff accordingly.
We're all very much aware of how much of a pounding CW takes in the watch world for their "sales" frequency anyway.
Absolutely spot on. Quit the nonsense sales every 5 minutes and go back to selling at reasonable prices instead of over inflated ones then trying to shift stock every other month.
this a million times !
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Mikkei4
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Re: Disappointed with my sale experience

Post by Mikkei4 »

suicidal_orange wrote:Mmm free dessert :thumbup:

Unfortunately giving away high value items that could be resold is not the same as giving away a dessert you'd have to bin anyway, though I daresay no-one would complain!
Sure CW can't give a whole watch away but shouldn't the apology letter have offered £50/£100/£150 off the purchase off a new watch if they've messed up selling a sales watch. They give loads of vouchers away throughout the year so they could have afforded to do this and they would have recovered some of the lost customer satisfaction and maybe also retain some customers that have now said they'll never buy CW again.

Personally I'd love to get into CW and sort this mess out as it's not rocket science to cure such problems although it might mean ditching any staff that don't have a strong feeling for doing a great job and having a vested interest in the Company. A "brain-storming" session to discuss the source of the issues and setting up a fix schedule would be a good start.

I think us Forum members have a feeling for CW because they're a bit out of the ordinary so want them to do well but looks like the numerous problems with this latest sale have tipped the scales of patience for many.
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Re: Disappointed with my sale experience

Post by FloridaPhil »

I moved my comment to the more appropriate Kip-any word thread http://www.christopherwardforum.com/vie ... =1&t=44626
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