Cigars International Inc. Unprofessional & Dishonest Bethlehem Pennsylvania

Good morning,

Please accept my sincere apologies for the manner in which your order was handled. I've been with the company quite some time and I can assure you that we're dedicated to providing great products, a strong value proposition and most importantly great customer service. Regardless of the number orders we process and ship successfully, it's the ones that we fail to deliver on our customer's expectations that I take personally. After some preliminary investigation, I've found some things that can be addressed in order for us to improve our service. I realize that corrective action at this point does nothing for the order mentioned in this report. I would like to thank the customer for pointing out our opportunity to improve.

Here's what I found out from my investigation. Disclaimer - We mishandled this situation; I'm not sharing the findings to justify the actions.

• The order was placed through our website on 8/20/2014 at 12:25PM.

• Normally orders placed before 3:00PM (Monday through Friday) are shipped the same day.

• On this particular day we changed the shipping cutoff to 11:00AM.

  • We were experiencing overwhelming response to our recent catalog mailing, a very attractive email promotion and the usual seasonal volume.

  • Our failure was to not adequately display said early cutoff. If a customer orders from us on a regular basis this change may have gone unnoticed.

    • Opportunity number one – work with our web developers to make such a change more prominent.

• When we were contacted by the customer regarding his package (not shipping) our representative did not properly handle the call and inform the customer, nor take the necessary steps (make sure the package was picked and shipped to meet the customer’s expectation). Responding 'there's nothing we can do about it' is unacceptable.

  • It wasn’t until after the customer faxed us a letter voicing his dissatisfaction that one of our lead representatives took any action.

  • The lead representative was able to get the package processed and shipped. However, failed to provide the customer with a detailed explanation about why the package didn’t ship or what carrier method would be used to get the package to the customer on the next day. (UPS Ground shipping to the customer residence is a one-day ship). The lead representative explained that the package would be received on the next day, but did not inform the customer that it would not be shipping via an overnight air service.

    • Opportunity number two – provide the initial representative refresher customer service training as well as the lead representative. Note: the handling of this situation was already discussed (and documented) with the lead representative. All representatives are being scheduled for refresher training. This particular situation will be used as a case study.

In closing, I appreciate the opportunity to share my findings. We understand that listening to our customers is important for continuous improvement. I encourage the customer to contact me directly to discuss the possibility of re-earning his business.

Steve McDevitt

Director, Customer Service

Cigars International