Description gone bad

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Have you ever tried describing a place for someone? I am not that good at that. Maybe I should be more polite, I am not even that good at both ends. Describing a place to someone and also being described to always presents a challenge. I don't always like being stranded when I am embarking on a new destination. I could remember last month when I had a call to pick up something and on getting closer, the person was no longer picking up. I was just left in the middle of 'wait for some time or abandon request'. I am happy it finally went out smoothly.

Geographical description is just one angle of it, sometimes we try to order for goods or get a service from a client we have never met. How do you get things done right? It is much easier to be at a store to carefully select what you want than just describing it. How many delivery yearly always have a customer dissatisfaction tag on the delivery date or some days later. It could be a fake product, already used, or a tempered with product which something may be missing.

Anytime I am always advised to order things online these are one of the things that always present challenges especially when the price of the product is a little high. My last company purchase left me little to no choice than ordering it outside the state. The places I went to for enquiries gave me no positive feedback. The 8-in-1 heat press machine is a rare machine down here and I will have to order it from the Lagos big markets. To Get to them, I will have to pass through online shopping centers.

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Actually. I was using Konga.com, it is a reputable online market that connects buyers with sellers. After doing some research through their pages, I finally found what I wanted. The price was high, the economy has presented a wild market, my original budget was much below the current price. I saw around a 40% price increase and it was a shocker. Not so much a shocker if I must say, I had to halt and rearrange myself after getting to one of their branch office to also confirm this price. I told their manager, I will need some time to gather the extra buck.

Luckily for me if I should say, I came across the same machine while browsing through the Internet. It was a Google ads flashing it at a lesser price and still in the same marketing platform. I made a click through to Konga.com and behold this offer was true. This current price will serve me like extra N50,000 in the process. I took time to read through their product description and it happened to be the same with the former. I copied the page link and forwarded it to their branch office manager to confirm the legitimacy and he gave me a go ahead.

I placed an order for the product and to be much more convincing, it was a pay on delivery. I was expecting it within 7 days. On the seventh day, I got the call to reach their branch office for the pickup. To be more precise, I knew very little about this machine. I felt like opening it before payment but this was against their pickup rules, I will have to pay first. So I made the payment to confirm the product is now mine before opening it. I had to confirmed the part and it felt the extra package that was advertised with it (the pen press) was not in there.

I told their customer care that I feel something is missing. Their reply was to take it to my office and let my technician come and confirm all part and if it was not complete as described then I will send a customer complaints either for return or adding what was missing. I was ok with their idea and terms of service. After the experiment, it turned out I was right from day 1, the pen press was not there. At first I felt like just letting it go but this will turn out to be a bad reputation for me as a manager, it is my duty to follow up.

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I finally sent the complaints mail and got a reply that I will be linked to have a one on one conversion with the seller. The next day someone called me and said she was the dealer who advertised the product. I had to tell her everything and she was polite enough to also spot out this shortage. According to her, her workers mistakenly forgot to remove the 'with pen press' under the product description. The prices of 8-in-1 with pen press had increased so they were trying to drop the prices for people to afford and exclude pen presses.

Who knows, maybe it was just 'a selling by tricks', hahaha. The product is already here with me, she said I can return it if I want to. Why should I return it? This was one of the question I even asked her, I had to consider the time and stress to get this machine to my business premises. Of course money is involved and will be same when I am returning it. Adding to that, she was very right about the current price with pen press in it. I did a quick survey in the platform and found out just that.

I was disappointed anyway, knowing very well that we will have to separately buy this. She also rendered her apologies and what was I to do. I only told her the need to be extra careful when advertising a product.

To conclude, let me add, after some days of thinking over, I finally mailed Konga.com that we were satisfied with her product after she made a proper discussion about the misunderstanding. I have also learnt something at both ends, their concerns for product delivery was amazing, do you know they halted paying her until I agreed I was satisfied with that product. They've got me here, that's good business.

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