Bad vs good customer service

Was looking at Alexa's new ranking by country feature:

According to it we (my council) have about 8% more overseas traffic than our actual stats show. Hmmm.

It also claims that we have lots of people visiting from Peru, Slovakia , Czech Republic, Brazil. Hmm again. Actually we do have 3% US and numbers from Poland and China (but actually a huge diversity). Lots of people in those countries must have the Alexa tooolbar....

Why it is worth looking @ Alexa is comparisons, as other sites suffer much the same - tool-based - distortion.

Anyway, I was drawn whilst comparing 'rank' - oww, a tad 'how big is yours'? I feel another JackP comment a lá 'we really are sad geeks who ought to get out more, aren't we?' coming on - to the offer of a T-shirt displaying said rank!

Off I go to .. zazzle

I'm dumped into a Flash state and - it appears - a design-your-own-t-shirt thing, which looks like fun - and there's my rank - so ...

one thinks >> 'share' and maybe 'change it to something else?'

So I hit Save and am dumped back into .. where?

I can see I'm in a community based around selling designs, it's a design community.

Huh?

All very interesting but I just want A teeshirt.. maybe .. maybe not now.. must be easier ways — is what I'm immediately thinking.

I must have gone through twelve screens before I find my 'in progress' design.

Their website design has things like a disguised promo link in your account nav - I forgot to mention it made me sign up - next to your 'cart'. That made me hate them.

You have to learn stuff to get back to that teeshirt you were previously thinking 'cool'.

Eventually I find the design, but the only size image on offer (bar screen grabs in the design process - I was thinking 'forward to a friend' remember?) is this >>

Bah. Humbug.

Ages later and there's still no email in my inbox

Lost maaaaaaa buizness zaazzhellee

Whereas ..

• I order flowers from a UK supplier easily found through a Google common keyphrase search.
• They drop me straight into an excellent, responsive online process. and that undercuts interflora nearly by half. Plus they're Fairtrade. Plus they take the payment method I want.
• Get asked if I want to input precious detail like 'do we need to ring a bell?'.
• Immediate email which neatly explains the process, another confirmation of dispatch, another delivery as promised, and efficiently described throughout.
• and what to do if it goes wrong.
  
• and '5% off your next purchase from us!'
  
• and - and it's the tone of their plain text email response which is done so well - a friendly
  

'p.p.s. to ensure that you receive all of our emails please add customer.service@imogenstone.com to your address book or trusted sender list.'

Very nicely done.

Simple, done well, which is harder than it looks.