Hello,
There is a new "tight red dress" photoset in the Playhouse today. It is aptly named as that dress was so snug-fitting that one of the straps popped off one evening when I was dancing in it. The limited amount of fabric could no longer contain the weight of my breasts or the rest of me. It had practically required a shoehorn to put it on to begin with. Skimpy as it was, that dress even had a bit of history.

I had ordered a long red gown from an online clothing store for a specific job that required one. A day or two before the job, for which I had to travel out of town, I received the short red dress in the mail instead of the longer one I had ordered. It happened to be one of those weeks where I had no free hours, but I had to make time to drive to Hollywood, capital of stripper apparel, to find a long, red gown before the trip. Not a really big deal, but still an inconvenience.

When I returned from the trip, which was in a foreign country and happened to be a particularly terrible work experience, I found a customer satisfaction survey from Yahoo Shopping sitting in my mailbox. It inquired about the service I had received from the online clothing store. The timing of it and my foul frame of mind compelled me to fill it out and return it to Yahoo Shopping. I don't think I've ever bothered to complete a customer survey in my life, even at times when I had far greater reason.

A day or two later I received an extremely irate phone call from a woman who only identified herself by her first name, and claimed to be the owner of the online clothing store. With great emotion in her voice and hostility rife in her words she lambasted me for giving her company a negative rating. Sure enough, on my computer that night was an e-mail from the same woman, signed with only a first name. I responded to her without being sure why I was bothering. I just found the e-mail exchange between her and me in my "sent items" folder. Some names in the following have been changed into dots. Here it is:

 
--- ".........."Lingerie@aol.com wrote:
> I left you a message today to give us a call
> regarding the feedback and your
> order.
>
> Would you please give us the courtesy of returning
> the phone call?
>
> We are a TOP SERVICE Yahoo store. We have certain
> rules given to us by YAHOO
> to be a TOP SERVICE Yahoo store. Not fixing a
> problem when a customer is
> unhappy is the FIRST mistake we can make. Although
> in this situation, we did
> not make an error. You gave us an "AWFUL" rating
> without even a call or an
> email that there was a problem on your end with the
> item you received.
>
> A simple phone call or email letting us know that
> you did not like your dress
> would have been the proper chain of command instead
> of giving us a negative
> rating. Our TOP SERVICE status depends on feedback.
> If we've done
> everything we can do to correct a customer's
> unhappiness with our store and
> we still couldn't make amends then that type of
> rating is justified. But when
> a customer doesn't even give us a chance, that's
> wrong and not very
> professional at all.
>
> We did not send you a cheaper version than what you
> paid as you are claiming.
> What you got is what our vendor sent us. That's
> it, very simple. That is
> the only way it comes to us. We don't make anything
> in our store. It's all
> purchased from different vendors.
>
> Rather than give us a bad rating, wouldn't emailing
> or phoning to let us know
> that you didn't like the dress nor the quality would
> have been the more
> mature way to go than slamming us with an
> unjustified rating? We would be
> more than happy to refund the price of the dress
> back to you. Sending the
> dress back to us via first class mail is less than
> $2.00. How is that too
> much trouble to get $54.00 back? Slamming us with
> negative feedback is
> supposed to be your way of getting even because of a
> dress you didn't like
> because it's "too much trouble to return it?" What
> is that all about? How
> can we provide the EXCELLENT customer service we are
> known for with an
> attitude like that? You are not allowing us to do
> our job.
>
> That was not your overall shopping experience with
> our store. 1. We sent you
> a request from PAYOLA to make it easier for you. 2.
> We sent your order out
> to you in less than 48 hours. Most online stores are
> not that fast. Yet you
> give us a negative rating. That's not right Ms.
> Danielle. Please be courteous
> and return my phone call so we can give you a return
> authorization to send
> the dress back. That is one of our more popular
> dresses and I could use it
> for my stock.
>
> If you don't want to shop with us again, that's your
> perogative. We need to
> do our very best in taking care of you from
> beginning to end. You have not
> allowed us to do that. We would be more than happy
> to refund the price of
> the dress back to you.
> Please give me a call tomorrow or email so we can
> issue a return
> authorization.
>
> "........."
> Owner

 
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Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2003 04:19:32 -0800 (PST)
From: "tanya danielle" <"........"@yahoo.com> | This is spam | Add to Address Book
Subject: Re: Customer feedback on order ".........."lingerie-10195
To: ".........."Lingerie@aol.com

"......,"
You do not run a "top service" store. You would not
have such an adversarial attitude if you did. And, in
fact, you did make an error with my order. I ordered
the "Tri Gown" and instead received the "Tri Dress,"
which is priced $15 - $20 less. I had ordered the gown
for a specific job and a short dress did not suffice.
Why should I bother trying to do an exchange with you?
I shop on the Internet for convenience since I have
very little free time. When I get home from work the
last thing I feel like doing is repackaging
merchandise and going to the Post Office. I don't care
if it would cost me $2 or $0. It wouldn't even matter
if I got a bonus. Remember, you would owe me $15 or so
if I actually troubled myself to try and get you to
refund me the difference in price between the two
dresses. It's just not worth my time. You have
competitors on the Internet who fulfill their orders
properly. Rather than becoming indignant over a
dissatisfied consumer such as myself, you would much
better serve your company by figuring out the source
of the actual problem. Use your energy to find out who
is sending out the wrong merchandise.
I can understand a company, (or anybody), making a
mistake, but I'm certainly not going to give you a
good review when asked for feedback on the handling of
my order. Unfortunately, you deserve the rating that I
gave you. It even makes me feel bad to say it because
I know it's not easy to run this type of company.
Sincerely, Tanya Danielle


I smiled when I reread these e-mails because it was clear that I was not having a good week and little things were getting underneath my skin. Possibly the same was true for the woman from the clothing store. I had pretty much forgotten about the whole incident until I looked at the "tight red dress" photos. It's funny how the minutiae of daily life can really inspire misplaced anger sometimes. Strangely, the thing that annoyed me the most about the whole situation at the time was the fact that the owner of the store had been somewhat confrontational both over the phone and via e-mail, but had failed to provide her full name on either occasion. It has always seemed to me that if you stand behind your words then you wouldn't feel a need to hide your identity. Also, this woman had my name, address, phone number, and credit card information at her disposal. Did she think I was going to harass HER?

That silly red dress saga really annoyed me when it happened, but it seems funny now that I even cared about it at all. I thought I'd take a moment today to remind myself, and perhaps whoever is reading this, to slow down and not get worked up over minor things. Quite often the circumstances that make you lose your temper are not even worthy of eliciting such emotion. Please smile and enjoy your day!--- Many kisses, Tanya