Mozilla Drops Ball on NY Times Posters
Friday, February 18th, 2005 by Mike Rundle
Remember when Firefox ran the 2-page ad in The New York Times? Well Mozilla sells posters of that advertisement for just under $7, so it’s a pretty good deal if you’re a Firefox fan. In fact, everyone outside the U.S. who doesn’t have access to the print version of the Times would probably be buying this to remember the event, at least that’s what I’d assume.
Unfortunately for Mozilla, they apparently didn’t think this poster would be a big hit. Because of this, it seems as though they didn’t print nearly enough and now people who ordered it when it first came out are getting pretty ticked off because after two months it still hasn’t shipped to everyone.
Colin Devroe wrote about his awful customer experience with Mozilla, and how they led him on, email after email, saying they’d be correcting the printing problem “soon.” Colin probably wouldn’t be so ticked off if they just analyzed the printing problem correctly and said from the start, “to be honest, it may take a month or two for all the kinks to be worked out.”
What should you take away from this? Always be honest with your customers, just not brutally honest. Give estimates with some padding so that you account for unanticipated circumstances. If something will take 5 days to complete, say it will take 7, then deliver in 4 if you can.
Under-promise, over-deliver. Or more precisely, slightly-pad-your-promise, then work hard to deliver better than your promise. Your customer is happy and you can now use your resources for new work.
Reader Comments
5 Responses to “Mozilla Drops Ball on NY Times Posters”
that’s funny, i just had a talk with someone working for me about exactly that - tell me it’s going to take longer than you think it will, then give it to me before i expect it. that way i don’t relay a deadline to a client that might be missed making the whole team look bad. i wish more people would “get” how important that is.
February 18th, 2005 at 1:03 pm
This is pretty ridiculous. I could do a second print run of those posters in about 48 hours time. As many as anyone could possibly want… millions if need be.
This obviously isn’t at the top of anyone’s priority list over there.
February 18th, 2005 at 1:28 pm
Mike, thank you for taking the time to address this issue. I’ve been getting tons of feedback from people who had similar experiences with the Mozilla Store. Some of which weren’t limited only to the Poster, but with Tshirts, books and almost every other item available on their store.
Anyone that has had trouble with the Mozilla Online store should comment on my site, or trackback a post to it explaining the experience(s) they had. Hopefully we will create a large enough buzzing sound in the Mozilla Store team’s ear to force them to change the way they handle orders.
Like Mike D. said, these instances border on ridiculous.
February 19th, 2005 at 1:14 pm
Customer Communication
“Under Promise, Over Deliver”; “Always be honest with your customers, just not brutally honest” are both correct values, but mostly “Keep your customers informed NOW”. I agree with the “take away” in Mozilla Drops Ball on NY Times Posters, a post by M…
February 20th, 2005 at 2:20 pm
I’ll just reiterate the post i placed on ubergeeks..
_____________________________________________
Dimitri Rota says:
Hello all,
I’m having an issue with the Mozilla store as well. I live in Paris France, and on January 27th, i ordered a couple Firefox Mugs from the mozilla store. I too got a message saying that the order had been shipped:
The order you placed at 12:07 PM Thursday, January 27, 2005 has been shipped.
Thank you for ordering from the Mozilla Store. If you have any questions about your order, please feel free to contact us at: service@mozillastore.com
Order: #73561
Shipped on 10:13 AM Thursday, February 17, 2005.
Shipped To:
Dimitri Rota
xxxxxxxxx@gmail.com
87 xxxxxxxx
PARIS
Ile de France
France
75006
Items Shipped:
Firefox Mug - Firefox Mug
$12.95 x 2 = $25.90
On March 11th I got an email from the Mozilla store asking me about the quality of the products i had recieved (whether the mugs were of good quality, etc).. only trouble is I hadn’t recieved them yet. I replied with:
Hello Mozilla,
I would love to answer your survey, but I have not yet recieved the
mugs i ordered from you. I was about to get in touch with you
concerning those mugs, as the order was placed a while ago, and i have
still not recieved them.
Please get back to me asap, as i’d like to know where my mugs are!!
thanks
________
They replied the next day with:
Dimitri,
Your mug was shipped on 17 February. International shipments usually take a minimum of four weeks for delivery, and sometimes longer. Please be patient a little longer and I’m sure your mugs will arrive. If you haven’t received them within six weeks (April 1), please reply to this email and let us know. We can reship your order at that time.
Regards,
Brian Jenkins
Manager, Mozilla Store Customer Service
____
I therefore waited until April 1st (joke): still no mugs…. So I sent the store an email asking them what was going on… nothing. Other emails were sent on April 5th, 22nd, 27th and May 12th… no reply whatsoever.
I too am not pissed off, but i would be lying if I said i wasn’t starting to lose my patience. Mugs could swim across the Atlantic faster than this! If anyone knows how i could proceed, that would be great.. I wanted to call them up, but no phone number is available.
ciao!
May 13th, 2005 at 7:23 am
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