Well! It has been a VERY EXCITING 24 hours around the Outlaw HQ as we try to get to the bottom of one person's missing order... and when we lifted one big ol' proverbial rock to see if we could find that order, we found a snake nest...
I think we've probably all been there at times in the past, and so I hope you'll have compassion and empathy for this situation.
And, as I've said before, it's all thanks to Outlaws like you reporting issues to us and helping us to uncover issues, and we appreciate your understanding.
Here's the summary:
- In mid-November, a change in our shipping software caused all orders to start being shipped DHL, and inconsistently reporting tracking info back to our website. We believe(d) we resolved that issue on the week of November 21st.
- All liquid colognes now need to be shipped by either DHL or USPS ground for hazardous materials compliance. While USPS is much faster, DHL is the only company our shipping software works with, so we had to start using DHL for our liquid colognes.
- Some tracking info (specifically DHL) from the week of November 28th (you know, THE BIG WEEK for retail) hadn't been correctly sending due to a communication issue between our shipping software and our website software. We believed we resolved that issue before Black Friday.
- On December 1, we (seem to have) inadvertently set up a rule in Gmail meant to filter spam, but that was accidentally left blank, so ended up filtering ALL email into a subfolder (I haven't been able to get an answer from Gmail about what actually happened, but this is my guess).
- Because this rule was in Gmail, but not in our customer satisfaction platform, we still got most customer email. Because we were still getting email, we didn't know there was an issue.
- In the investigation of the missing order and missing email from the customer, we uncovered a bunch of emails that had not been answered sitting in a sub-folder of Gmail.
- We responded to the customer (and refunded her order for the trouble) and resolved the issue (we think).
The still-outstanding bit of the kerfuffle is that there are MANY cologne packages that have been sent DHL, and that means tracking info may not have come through correctly.
In addition, DHL is legendarily SLOOOOWWW, so as we get closer to the holidays, we know the pressure to get Christmas gifts is ON like Donkey Kong (please tell me I'm not the only person who remembers Donkey Kong?).
While we're confident that the orders placed last week (and before) will be delivered before Christmas, we're not sure if DHL is going to cut it for this coming week's cologne orders... so we had an emergency huddle yesterday and figured out a work-around to use USPS for the cologne shipments by manually processing those orders.
Yes, it's tons of extra work, but if it means you'll get your orders in time, it's worth it.
If you wrote us in the last week and didn't hear back, please try again. We believe we've gotten back to everyone, but if you didn't hear back, this is why.
We strive to be the best little sundries company around, and with your patience and help, we do better every day.
I just Love y’ll attitude. Straight Shoot’n..
As a 20 year UPS veteran I can attest to DHL being slower than peanut butter in January but your colognes are the tops especially Blazing Saddles and Fire in the Hole!!
As I have always said and will say ‘the little train that could’ AND ‘ You’re Da Bomb!’
So proud!
I got my first order about a week ago. I absolutely love the calamity Jane scent. And your packages are SO fun . I really look forward to doing lots more business with you. Happy holidays to all.