ergophobe - 8:20 pm on Dec 31, 2007 (gmt 0)

Actually Ken, I agree with that and don't mean to say that someone who messes up and then fixes it should be an online hero, but notice your use and my use of the word "should", rather than "is".

Look at how many people spontaneously mentioned "bad" transactions as positive ones. You are absolutely right. When Amazon failed to ship an item to Sonjay, Amazon should have been pilloried, not praised for sending it a year late and only after being reminded. That should be completely unacceptable in a merchant and they should have lost, not gained trust.

And yet... there's that should word again. Like I say, I think that even for highly savvy users (roger_d, Tedster and sonjay certainly qualify as savvy web users), they were wowed by a merchant who messed up and then made it right, rather than a merchant who got it right the first time. I think there is a very important lesson in there, regardless of what should be.

I just can't get away from reading that and concluding that the big problem on the net is still trust, and that is true even for folks who buy a lot of stuff online. Somehow, a transaction that goes exactly as expected does not build trust in the same way as a screwed up transaction that's been adequately corrected. You're absolutely right - this should be expected, not a WOW, but there it is in this informal poll as a WOW. It says to me that we crave palpable proof that there's an honest, if sometimes incompetent (not talking of the defective merchandise, but the misshipments mentioned), person behind the transaction.

One merchant who I adore, manages to do this for every new customer, without having to screw up first. I made a first purchase, uncertain of whether it was a totally legit website. The next day I received a phone call saying that they call every first time customer, asked if I any questions that were not answered on the website, made no attempt to upsell me, gave me a ship date, and thanked me. They thus achieved the same trust building without the negative impact of having to mess up first. Maybe you think that shouldn't be a WOW, but standard, but this is the only merchant who has ever done that and it had a huge impact on me.

Again, it's a story about trust, not about service. In their case, the service was exemplary, but as you say, that should be the baseline, not the WOW. But their personal contact as a way to build trust (and ultimately loyalty), was a total WOW. Should it be? Maybe not, but it is.