I read some great books over the Christmas break. One was a longitudinal study on the characteristics of a breakthrough company (and why Gartner was not considered one by the author), and the other was on competing in business through the use of analytics.

Regardless of the titles and topics, both focused heavily on the importance of understanding customers. No rocket science there but that's the fascinating thing about customer service. Attention to the little things pays big returns. Of course the opposite is also true.

Over the same period I had an interesting customer experience problem of my own that began in November with an internet purchase and ended just this week with a refund and my withdrawl of a complaint with the New Zealand Consumer Comission.

Last November I order an "On Air" light for the new LTV studio via an online business called studio-lights.com. The price was right, the product choice was excellent, and the shipping was free and despite the extended delivery was still well within the timeframes we had set down in order to be ready for launch this month.

I paid for it, received a PayPal notification receipt from the vendor and thought nothing more of it.

Just prior to closing down for Christmas I sent a follow-up email asking for a progress update or parcel tracking information - a short reassurance was all I required. Even at that stage although the package had not arrived I was not concerned and just assumed that the Christmas mail was probably adding a few extra days to the process. By the second week of January I had received no reply from studio-lights.com so decided to step it up a notch.

Back to the website I went, found their number and dialled only to be told "this number is not in service". I promptly dashed off another email - a little less courteous this time - explaining that I required immediate action or I would be highlighting the business and transaction as fraudulent with the appropriate authorities.

When another day had passed without communication I contacted an industry associate in New Zealand (#nzben) and asked if he had heard of them. He hadn't but suggested a plan of attack.

With no other contact details or physical address listed on the studio-lights.com website I first tried to find administration information through the NZ domain commission but the details were both incorrect and incomplete.

I then tried to physically find the company through the web development company (istrategy.com) that was also listed on their website.

They similarly had no phone or physical details but when I reverse checked them through the domain commission the "office number" was answered by someone who spoke little english and had never heard of either company. More alarm bells.

At that point I had submitted a complaint to the NZ consumer commission, #NZBen had started a line of inquiry in twitter, and we had done all we could.
 
Then within 24 hrs the email response finally came from studio-lights.com assuring me that they were legit and that we had not been scammed. And there we were. Yet despite their assurances, and knowing that it wasn't a scam, the experience had still felt like one.

So what has been the end result of all this confusion and time-wasting apart from highlighting obvious flaws in the customer strategy of studio-lights.com and data inaccuracies in the NZ domain commission's key database?

After explaining my experience to the company's owner their response was as follows:

"Thanks Peter.. Our web developer went bust and dropped off the face of the planet so that's caused some "issues" ... we are a small business so can't really afford someone manning the phone 24/7 so encourage most of our business via email. What we are doing:

1. I have just now refunded your money via paypal.
2. I'm having our website updated next week with correct contact information and getting our landline diverted to a cell phone.
3. Informed the person that does our mailing to use track and trace and inform the customer of the tracking # for all future orders.
4. Getting that WHOIS information updated to new details.

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Can I recommend this company? Well, no. Though I specified that I still wanted the light I never received it in the end. It seems that it was easier to refund our money. Perhaps if it had of worked out differently then we would have been repeat customers of studio-lights.com as we look to roll out other studios across the region.

What is a clear from this story is that a fresh focus on re-evaluating the basics of the customer service experience is a must for all companies that have every desire to succeed in their chosen fields.And maybe the fate of companies lies in the simple act of being there when their customers need them.

Ironically, it was exactly the wake-up call I needed at the start of another busy year both as a customer looking for good suppliers and partners, and a business owner wanting to provide a high quality and optimised experience for all those that do business with Longhaus.

On a personal level I feel better for the experience and harbour no ill will. I sincerely hope that studio-lights.com can turn it around.