Maybe J.Crew Is Not Sorry After All
I found the following article very interesting as it highlights the changes made to J.Crew’s apology that is posted on its website. I saw that the apology had been made smaller on the homepage, but I didn’t realize they had actually changed the wording.
I have included some highlights here. Please click the link below for the article in its entirety.
J.Crew Apologizes For ‘Too Many’ Mistakes During Launch, Then Redesigns Its Apology
by Eric Athas and Evan SchumanJ.Crew said Wednesday (July 30) that it had made “too many” mistakes after it launched its new site a month earlier, amid complaints of crashes and frequent slowdowns. Apparently, one of those mistakes included precisely how they said they made too many mistakes, as the company made more than a half-dozen changes to its homepage apology from Wednesday to Thursday.
The original apology, posted early Wednesday morning, said: “We’ve made some mistakes (too many in our mind). We want to say that we’re sorry for any issues you have experienced while shopping J.Crew online or over the phone over the last few weeks—we know we’ve let you down. We are in the midst of making some enhancements to our web site and call center (and, unfortunately, encountered some bumps along the way). Please bear with us as we work through these issues—we know it’s not perfect.”
It dominated the homepage of jcrew.com and was signed by J. Crew President Tracy Gardner and Chairman/CEO Millard Drexler.
By Thursday morning, the apology sharply shrunk—to less than one-fourth of Wednesday’s size—and it appears that Gardner and/or Drexler had reconsidered being personally tied to the glitches and their names were magically erased.
OLD APOLOGY:
CURRENT APOLOGY:
August 2nd, 2008 - 11:27 pm
I work at the Jcrew catalog/call center, Jcrew is still sorry…we just wanted to show the new Jcrew collection…which needed to be on the homepage.
August 3rd, 2008 - 11:43 am
Hi Mallory. Wow, I am so happy that you came across my blog. Would you be willing to give me some insight into what has been happening at J.Crew lately? Please let me know. I am sure my readers would appreciate any information during this chaotic time.
August 3rd, 2008 - 5:29 pm
Yes, I would be happy to do that for you!
What I have been telling my customers (passing along information that I have obtained) is that Jcrew is in the middle of a HUGE change – company wide. It really depends on your issue with Jcrew for the reason… If you had delays or issues with shipping it’s because of the communication errors with the computers. The distribution center’s computers (where the package and ship you your stuff) are not communicating with our computers (your computer at home via internet and my computer at the call center). So it’s causing a lot of problems…and it’s unexpected. For example, a lot of customer are ordering say…4 items and only receiving 3. Even though when they placed this order over the phone or over the internet…and everything says that it is availale, the inventory just isn’t right for some items (because of the computers not communicating). But don’t worry because Jcrew is fixing all of these problems every day! If the order goes into complete shipped status, then you are charged for the whole order – which is a problem, because we only charge when we ship. As soon as this occurs, and we are able to go into the order, we credit the customer back. But most of the time…the order is in a partial shipped status, which means that the computer is kinda waiting for that item to become available, but it never will be. So in that instance, the customer is never charged.
It is just very frustrating, especially now with the final sale going on, because you think that you are getting a great deal and then you never receive it because it actually wasn’t there! I personally apologize to everyone and on behalf of Jcrew! We had no idea that things were going to be this chaotic!
I promise to everyone…we are all working overtime hours to help get all of this straightened out. And if you have a problem with your order, just call us … if there is something else that we can send to your for a % off or anything we can do to make up for what we didn’t do…just call!
If you would like to know anything else about the situation or anything really, just let me know!
Mallory
August 3rd, 2008 - 5:33 pm
And as for the suggestions for Jcrew…please please…
email us at:
contactus@jcrew.com
They actually do read every single e-mail. We record everytime someone makes a suggestion about something…whether it’s in regards to the website, the fit of certain pair of pants, whatever it may be…they make a note of it and keep track of how many people feel the same way. So it’s very important to let us know that you have these suggestions, because I can promise you that a lot of other people feel the same way and have already told us, we are just waiting for a little more feedback.
Mallory