Donald Russell
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Excellent products. Careless dispatch.
The products are excellent. The attention to order and dispatch detail is a big letdown. I ordered two Christmas gift packages well ahead of schedule: one for Wiltshire on October 4, one for Aberdeenshire on October 10. I specified the two appropriate delivery days in mid-December to account for the recipients' holidays. Early in December, a confirmation note from the courier told me that the Wiltshire package would be delivered on schedule the following day. The problem was that the following day was supposed to be the Aberdeenshire delivery day. The Wiltshire people would not be back from holiday for another week. I checked my order confirmation. My instructions had been clear and accurate. It was evident that someone in Russell's dispatch had mixed up the two delivery dates, perhaps because the two orders had similar order numbers. I called Russell to explain their mistake and to get it put right. The attitude of the woman I spoke to was dreadful; as if their dispatch mix-up was MY fault. "Well," she said, "we'll call it back but you know it's just going to go to waste now (sigh)." It was put right eventually and recipients were wowed by their gifts, but somebody needs schooling in how to apologise politely for a company blunder. Everyone makes mistakes, but not every company tries to blame the customer for it.