Building Empathy Into the Buying Experience
Or, “Just let me buy the #%)$%&* jacket”
Sara Jane: All I wanted was to buy a jacket.
Spoiler: I did buy a jacket, and the experience was less than enjoyable, to put it nicely. It was such a simple thing, and should have been simple, but it ended up being an incredible nightmare.
But I’ll get there in a second.
In the last few weeks, I’ve written about empathy in our daily working lives, and you read Jessica blog about designing in a way that provokes conversations with customers. Today, we’re joining forces to talk about designing beyond just a website, and instead designing an entire purchasing experience—and how an injection of empathy can make all the difference.
Please note that we will not be naming the producer of the jacket, as this article is not meant to be an attack on them, but rather a conversation about how the experience could have been improved and the steps involved to do so. They are not the only company that struggles with this, and there are many lessons to be learned and shared here.
Ready for this emotional roller coaster? Buckle up.
Excitement and need
So, as I was saying, I wanted to buy a jacket. Actually, I needed to buy a jacket. My fiancé and I were going to be getting married in London, England, within a few weeks, then adventuring our way through England and Scotland, and I needed a jacket that would stand up to the British autumn weather and serve as a layering piece.
I started asking friends for recommendations, and a friend pointed me to a jacket that was exactly what I was looking for. It was more than I would normally be willing to spend, but hey, it’s my wedding trip! Splurges are accepted, right?
Jessica: This is where Sara Jane’s journey began. She had both the need of a jacket and the want of a specific brand. Even though Sara Jane hadn’t visited the brand’s website yet, she was excited, and her only thought was getting the jacket.
Confusion and frustration
Sara Jane: After browsing other jackets, I still had not found anything else I liked as much, so I decided to pull the trigger on the yearlong-drooled-over jacket.
Little did I know, I was in for an adventure.
Tuesday, August 23rd. I had been on the brand’s site before and was impressed with its aesthetic and clean design. As I sat down to buy the jacket, I noticed an offer on the homepage to sign up for their newsletter and receive 10 percent off my first purchase. Now, 10 percent doesn’t sound like much, but when it’s off a $200 jacket, it’s something!
I immediately signed up for the newsletter, then proceeded through the confirmation overkill gambit, in which I received a confirmation email, confirmed my email, then received an email confirming my confirmation along with the discount code I was to input at checkout. That’s a lot of confirming for 10 percent.
Finally, I added the jacket to my cart and input the provided code… only to get a return of “Coupon code xxxxx is not valid.” I tried again, just in case I had mistyped. Same result.
I then went back to my email to make sure I hadn’t missed something, and saw there, in small type at the bottom:
“Offer valid until August 15th, 2016.”
If you are looking at the dates and are confused, I don’t blame you. I was in the same boat. The code they provided had expired an entire week before it was sent to me! So, I did what most people would probably do: I emailed customer service with hopes they would issue me a valid discount code.
After emailing customer service, I received a confirmation email that informed me it could take up to 24 hours for someone to respond. I was already feeling the crunch to get things purchased before our trip, so I decided to not wait, and to order the jacket without the 10 percent discount.
So started round two: I went to the product page, added the jacket in my desired color of navy to the cart, and proceeded to check out. When entering my shipping information, I was asked to select my country, but the United States was not listed. I tried different browsers, reset my browser, cleared my cache, but still nothing worked to show my country.
It was late, I was tired, and I only wanted to order this jacket. I sent another email to customer service about this second issue and went to bed grumbling.
Jessica: The second point in Sara Jane’s journey was the website. She entered the site feeling excited to purchase her jacket, but left feeling uncertain and lacking a sense of fulfillment.
Let’s think about this experience as a conversation between Sara Jane and Brand X. When I say, “conversation” in the context of using a website, I am referring to how Sara Jane interacts with the website and how the brand has set up the website to respond.
Issue #1 (The discount code):
The brand initiated the conversation with Sara Jane as soon as she entered the website by asking her if she would like a discount code. She was interested, and responded by entering her email address to receive an email with the discount code, which is another touchpoint in her experience. The brand responded back with, essentially, a lie; an outdated code. Sara Jane’s state of mind at this point was: “Wow, this brand doesn’t deliver what they promise. How will I know that I can trust them?”
Thankfully, since her initial energy to purchase the jacket hadn’t worn out yet, she was able to ignore the email and continue the purchasing process.
Solution: Brand X should have a system in place that will not send out certain discount codes once they expire, or they could simply be more organized.
Issue #2 (The lost country):
Sara Jane had been left to assume that she had completed her order correctly. She experienced many hiccups along the way that left her unsure if she would even receive her jacket.
Solution: When there’s an amount like $200 involved, Sara Jane should feel confident in knowing what she will get, when she is getting it, and if she ordered it properly. Ideally, she would have a clear understanding of the country options and confidence that she has selected the right one. Even better would be if the website could recognize Sara Jane’s IP address and automatically select the right country.
Sara Jane should have gone to bed with the same excitement she had when she first visited the website.
Annoyance
Sara Jane: Wednesday, August 24th. The next morning, I had an email from a customer service representative I’ll call Christy, telling me I had been using the international store and needed to switch to the U.S. store. She made no mention of the 10 percent discount code.
Deciding it wasn’t worth possibly waiting another 24 hours for a reply regarding the discount, I proceeded to the U.S. store to order the jacket.
When I got to the U.S. store, I signed up again for their newsletter, thinking, “This discount code will work!” and went through the process of email confirmations, only to receive the same outdated code.
Of course.
So here goes round three. I begrudgingly went to the product page, chose the darkest color from the listed colors, thinking it was navy, as I assumed that every color available was listed as a swatch, like pretty much every other site I’ve shopped on. I thought it was strange that the label indicating which color I’d selected was missing.
Nonetheless, I added the jacket to my cart and went through the checkout process, which was simple.
“Well, that’s done,” I thought.
Jessica: This was the third time Sara Jane tried to ordered this jacket. If it had beenme, I would have given up, canceled the order, and picked out a different brand. Sara Jane had a lot of determination, though, and Brand X should have felt appreciative of this. However her drive was beginning to wear very thin, very quickly.
Issue #1 (No color label):
Sara Jane was again left guessing if she had chosen the right jacket. She assumed that there was only one dark jacket since there was only one dark swatch. What she didn’t realize is that as she chose a swatch, it replaced it with another; there were actually two dark color options. This had now turned into a game of roulette. Did she choose the right color for her $200? Stay tuned…
Anyway, let’s go back to thinking of this like a conversation. In this case, the brand told Sara Jane about almost all of their color options. Brand X seemed way too distracted to answer Sara Jane’s immediate needs and concerns, so she was left to find those answers on her own—which resulted in, again, uncertainty if she would receive the jacket she needs. At this point, all trust had been lost, but she was willing to take the extra step to just get the jacket.
Solution: If there had simply been a label above the color, Sara Jane could have understood which jacket she had selected. What if Sara Jane had been color blind? As designers, we can never rely on color alone, because not everyone can see color the same way.
Anger
Sara Jane: Thinking I was done, I went about getting ready for work. Five minutes later, I was reading over the order confirmation email and gasped — I had ordered the jacket in BLACK, not navy as I had thought.
How did I get that wrong? I was always so careful in checking my online orders.
I jumped back on the computer to contact them and edit my order. The FAQ page informed me that if an order had been placed with the wrong color or size, it could not be edited. Instead, you had to email them to cancel the order and start over again. This I found to be bullshit. They stated you should do this quickly, as there was a short window of time to make changes. I emailed six minutes after ordering, thinking that would surely fall within the “small window” and went about my day.
Thursday, August 25th. I awoke to two emails from the jacket people — one telling me my order had shipped, and another a couple hours later from Christy informing me the order had already shipped and could not be cancelled.
So much for that short window.
She told me I would have to reject the delivery from FedEx in order to have it sent back to them and be refunded.
Jessica: It’s important to mention that not every part of a person’s online purchasing experience happens on the website. Sara Jane had to open her email to see that she ordered the wrong color, and then had to call FedEx to move her order. Here are two clear touch points that existed outside of the website, and that left Sara Jane feeling hopeless and not in control of her order.
Issue #1 (The wrong color):
Not only was Sara Jane unaware of which color she was selecting, there was no clear communication telling her the color of the jacket until after she had confirmed her purchase. Too late now; the money was spent and Sara Jane was left with the wrong jacket.
Solution: There were many points throughout the checkout process that could have clearly identified the color within the order summary.
Issue #2 (The FedEx call):
Sara Jane then had to reach out to a third party, FedEx, to clean up Brand X’s mistakes. The brand’s first mistake was not clearly labeling the color of the jacket, and the second mistake was not telling Sara Jane that “a short window” meant within their time zone. Her interaction with FedEx was outside of the website but still very much a part of her overall experience—and a huge pain point at that.
Solution: An easy way to solve the “short window” issue would be to clearly tell Sara Jane in the same paragraph that told her how to return her item, that they are in a different time zone. They should also include that they may not get her email in time because of the time difference, and provide her with an alternative. Another solution, one that would take more thought but is the most logical solution, would be to have a system in place that would allow Sara Jane to access her orders and cancel the order herself within a certain time frame.
Determination and rage
Sara Jane: After doing some digging, I found out it would take 10 business days after they received the returned package to process the refund, then another two to three business days for the refund to hit my account. Essentially, the refund would take up to three business weeks. Insert much swearing here. I had once returned something to Amazon and it took them mere hours to refund my money.
Remembering I was in crunch time before our trip and needed to get the jacket soon, I said “Screw it” and ordered the jacket again in the correct color, which means I now had $400 wrapped up in the jacket.
Friday, August 26th. Luckily, the jacket had essentially been overnighted, and was set to be delivered by end of day. Since I was going to be at work all day, I called my apartment complex’s office, where I assumed the package would be delivered, and asked them to reject the order, which they kindly agreed to do. I even added a note to the package info on my online FedEx account, instructing them to return the package to the sender.
When I got home that night, I had a delivery slip on my door from FedEx, telling me they had tried to deliver the package and would try again tomorrow. Sigh. I ended up calling them at 10:30 p.m. and talking to a helpful gentleman named Jorge, who helped me reject the package and get it sent back. At least that was done.
P.S.— I had not received a shipping confirmation email on my order of the navy jacket this day.
Monday, August 29th. I woke early to find that the company had charged me yet again for the jacket. If you’re keeping track, that’s $600 wrapped up in this increasingly stupid jacket. I ran to the computer and jumped on their site. There in the FAQ was a section that said, “Although it may appear as if you have been charged twice, we can assure you that we have only taken payment once.” Except… you did charge me twice. That money is not available to me, even if it is just a “pre-authorization.”
I was furious. Unbelievably furious. Because remember: All I wanted was to buy a jacket.
I had calmed myself down by that afternoon — thanks, bourbon! — and had decided to give it 24 hours for the extra charge to drop off my account before contacting the company. That was the empathetic and patient thing to do, right?
As of Monday afternoon, I had still not received a shipping notification for my order, so I emailed and requested the delivery address be changed to my office so I could easily sign for and receive the order and leave the door tags out of it. It had taken them less than 24 hours to process and ship my previous order, but now we were sitting at 96 hours and still no shipping. My patience — and bourbon — were running out.
Jessica: Yet again another touch point outside of the website; Sara Jane’s bank account. Good thing she had been saving up for her vacation or she would have experienced the shock of an overdrafted account. Brands should be very clear about situations like this, because they can have long-term consequences for people like Sara Jane. What if Sara Jane hadn’t had that money in her account? If we think about the conversation that Brand X is having with Sara Jane, they essentially went behind her back and took something that wasn’t theirs without any mention of doing so.
Solution: Proper messaging and communication that this type of thing may happen should have been presented to Sara Jane when she was going through the checkout process so she she knew what to expect. Better yet, don’t charge her for something she didn’t buy.
Placation
Sara Jane: Tuesday, August 30th. On Tuesday morning, I had two emails — one telling me my order had shipped, and another from Christy a few hours later informing me the address could not be changed because the jacket had already shipped. Classic. She offered to contact FedEx to get the address changed, which I agreed to allow her to do.
Sidenote: I started to have a sneaking suspicion that Christy was not in the United States, but rather in the United Kingdom. Based on the timestamps on her emails, which occurred usually between 3:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., she was not in any American time zone. The day before had been a British bank holiday, which would also explain the lack of communication that day.
By around noon that day, nothing had changed on my FedEx delivery information, so I felt it safe to assume Christy had not reached out to them to get the address changed. I then paid FedEx $5 to change the address to my office. I wasn’t taking chances.
At this point, my general feelings were seesawing between “Ugh, whatever” and plain rage. The extra $200 had not yet fallen off my account, and I just wanted to be done with the experience.
That evening, I sent an infuriated but concise email to Christy telling her all my frustrations — the experience and difficulties of purchasing, not being able to edit an order, the length of time between communications, the lack of a customer service phone number, the time it would take to refund my money, the double charge. I told her it was the absolute worst online retail experience I had ever had and that it was unacceptable for this to be anyone’s experience. (I first made sure to let her know that none of that frustration was directed at her, as she had been the most helpful part of the process.) I told her I wasn’t airing my grievances to get free things or breaks, but that I just wanted my refund and my jacket and to be done with the situation. Short and sweet.
Wednesday, August 31st. Christy wrote me back an apologetic email and offered a 10 percent refund on the jacket, plus expediting the refund process on the jacket I returned. Instead of waiting the 12 to 13 business days, she would refund it as soon as the warehouse received my returned package. She also insisted the hold on the extra $200 in pending funds was due to my bank, not the company. This was all fine and good, and I appreciated it. I felt we were so close to being done.
I contacted my bank and asked about when the bank would release the fees. They returned a confused message saying that was not contingent on them, but on the company.
For some reason, I was not surprised.
Jessica: Issue #1 (The change of address):
I admit, it was a good move for Christy to take action in contacting FedEx, but she failed yet again at delivering what she promised. Sara, again, had to reach out and pay even more money.
First off, Sara Jane should not have had to justify her reasoning on being upset. At this point, Christy should have been giving her free things and breaks to build back some trust.
Solution: The obvious solution would have been to avoid this situation to begin with by clearly labeling the coat color. The second solution—I would call this the safety net—would have been for Christy to inform Sara Jane that she was in a different time zone; simple.
Issue #2 (The bank call):
First off, Sara Jane deserved the 10 percent off to begin with. Remember the promise Brand X made to Sara Jane as soon as she entered the website? Now this 10 percent doesn’t seem like a courteous act anymore, since she was supposed to have the discount from the start.
The fact that Sara Jane had to reach out and start a conversation with her bank was unnecessary from the start. She shouldn’t have to worry about missing money every time she wants to purchase something. The conversation with her bank left Sara Jane feeling in the wrong because Brand X was trying to pin their wrongdoing on someone else. Sara Jane was left stuck in the middle. The brand had lied to her for the 87th…. let’s face it, I’ve lost count.
Solution: The solution is the same as last time; don’t take money that doesn’t belong to you, and if you have to hold a pending action on an account, reassure by clear communication to your users that this is normal.
Murphy’s law
Sara Jane: Still Wednesday, August 31st. As of Wednesday morning, the jacket was shown as being out for delivery from FedEx, so I stuck around my office to sign for the package when it arrived. Finally, at 5:45 p.m., FedEx updated the tracking information and showed they attempted to deliver the package but no one was home, and would attempt to deliver again the next day.
Thursday, September 1st. I called FedEx to ensure the package would be delivered to the office and not my home, and the woman informed me it would be delivered the next day, as they had received my address change request only the day before. I told her I could see the audit trail, which showed I had changed the address at 11:17 a.m. on Tuesday. She didn’t seem to care much about that detail, and told me it would still be delivered the next day instead.
I got off the phone frustrated and stalked over to Jessica’s desk to vent. She suggested I call back and ask if I could simply pick the package up at the FedEx location. (She’s brilliant.) I did so, and spoke to a kind gentleman about picking up my package. He put me on hold while he contacted the location, but soon returned and nervously told me they did not know where my package was.
Of course.
FedEx was sympathetic, and diligently called several times to assure me they were doing all they could to find my package. Then, magically at 4:00 p.m., the package showed up at my office.
All done. (For the most part. The extra $200 charge didn’t fall off my account until eight days after it showed up — Tuesday, September 6th.)
Jessica: Why wouldn’t anything else go wrong? Sara Jane had lost complete control over the coat she purchased (three times at this point). She was now thinking, “Brand X is notorious for causing issues, so why would something go right now?”
Issue #1 (The missing package):
Sara Jane was frantically trying to track down her package because she had lost all hope that she will get her package without anymore issues. If this had been the first issue Sara Jane had encountered, she wouldn’t have been as upset, but since it was one of many, it just continued to fuel her fire. The point to note here is that Brand X actually had nothing to do with Sara Jane’s issues with FedEx, but because they threw her through so many loops before, this was still very much a part of her overall shopping experience. It’s just another thing that went wrong while she was “ordering the coat.”
Solution: Proper tracking of the product on the FedEx end could have let Sara Jane know where her package was, and a confirmation that her address had been moved would have assured her that the change had gone through successfully.
Never again
Sara Jane: The good news is I ended up loving the jacket more than I expected. It was high quality and cute, and would be a great jacket to keep me warm and dry as I traipsed across Britain. But I can say with confidence that I will never order another product from this company unless it is hanging on a rack in front of me and I can walk out of the store with it that very day.
I later found out it was for sale at Madewell, whose nearest store is mere miles from my home.
What a short, dreamy adventure that would have been.
Jessica: Aha! What a coincidence. Sara Jane’s dreamy experience buying the coat off a rack should be the same experience she gets from an online purchase: She finds the coat, pays for it, and receives it, happily ever after.
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