Here's How To Win A New Customer

I placed an order with Puget Systems (www.pugetsystems.com) at 1:24 PM today.

The products, two heatsinks for a Socket-F CPU, did not specify the size in their website. I learned moments later that model fit the larger 4.1' mounting and I need the 3.5' mounting.

At 1:27 PM (3 minutes later) I sent a message through their system requesting a cancellation of the order, and explained what product I really need.

At 2:17 PM I received the following e-mail:

Hello Sir,

Unfortunately we've already processed your order and have it prep'd to ship. At this point we have to charge a 15% restocking fee, to cover our time and the fees that we are charged when we process and then refund credit cards. This is in accordance with our return policy, as seen here: http://www.pugetsystems.com/warranty.php

As such, your refund will be for $67.57; I've got that set up in our system, and it will be credited back to your card in the next 3-5 business days.

Thank you,

William George
Puget Custom Computers

Last year I spent over $18,000 with Newegg. This was their chance to make me a happy new customer of Puget Systems. I lashed back with a quick 'Thanks, but I'll never do business with you again' email. I got the following response:

Tony -

This issue was escalated up to me. The problem we have is that it costs us 3% to charge a credit card, and another 3% to refund. So we're out 6%, 1 minute later. We are also very fast about preparing orders for shipment, which means we've gone to the administrative work, inventory allocation, boxing up for shipping, all very soon after the order is placed. I checked on this order, and while it was allocated for shipping, they actually had not boxed it yet, so it is true we did not have our full overhead in place by the time you cancelled. Due to that, I'd be happy to lower our restocking fee in this case, but we still have to cover our costs. That'd be 6%. I think people don't think about how placing an order actually does result in action on the vendor side, and that undoing an order results in even more action on the vendor side. Just let me know if the lower restocking fee is agreeable, and do let me know if you feel this is unfair.

Thanks,

Jon Bach
Puget Custom Computers
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http://www.pugetsystems.com
jonbach@pugetsystems.com

At least they listened, and were willing to work with me. That says a lot.