While I wouldn’t expect them to overnight me the correct bottles or send me the GKAs while also letting me keep the Auslese, I would expect them to exchange the wines I received for the ones I ordered. At the very least, they’d obviously need to take the bottles back at their expense and refund my money (or I’d need my card to issue a chargeback). I don’t care if I got a great price on something I never wanted, I ordered a specific wine because that’s what I wanted. What you described seems akin to going to a restaurant, ordering short rib for $30, getting a filet worth $50, and the manager having the gall to tell you to that you should feel fortunate you received the filet because it costs more.
exactly what my thought process was. i didn’t ask to keep the bottles and i wouldn’t ask to keep the bottles. i didn’t know they were supposed to be 375ml. i simply said, “i ordered goldkapsel and was sent the regular auslese. let me know how best to handle the mixup.” he responded, “yea, so i’m looking at your order. those should have been entered in as 375s, and so you got em at a great price.” i replied, “i’m not arguing on the price, i’m simply saying they were not what i ordered or what you offered via the email. and even if they were supposed to be 375s of goldkapsel, you still sent me 750ml of the regular auslese.” he came back with, “well, there’s nothing we can do.” That was the end of the conversation. honestly was surprised at the lack of even an attempt at customer service.
All,
An update: Wine.com has graciously agreed to ship me the missing Carlisle bottle without asking the mistakenly sent bottle be returned.
Based on the responses above and my own expectations on what to expect from a large retailer, that seems well over the line of “the right thing to do” and the sort of service experience I will tell others about, beginning with the readers of this thread.
This really isn’t that complicated. Sometimes there are tricky situations, but this isn’t one of them. They should send the correct one and send you a label to send the other one back. How hard is this?
I quit ordering from Flickinger several years ago due to persistent mis-shipments. Was constantly having to send back orders and then do a shipping swap. Once they offered me to keep a more expensive 3 pack but they were wines I didn’t like or want. They gave me quite a run around so I told them to refund my money and I shipped the wines back to them.
- It isn’t the customers fault they received the wrong wine. 2. They could have just as easily said nothing and purchased the lower price wine again (btw, the 2018 Carlisle Gruner is delicious). 3. Shipping a wine round trip across the country can take as long as two weeks even if call tags and appropriate packaging (single bottle foam) is available to the customer at their end and it could create irritation in the customer they are spending any time facilitating getting your mistake fixed. By the time it gets returned most merchants or wineries will not want it to go back in inventory for the simple fact if it has been compromised and then is resold, the losses simply compound. In my experience working for a winery it ended up going to the Tasting Room where it was either used or dumped. 4. There is also the scenario where the customer calls and tells you they received a wine they didn’t order and is told to keep it with our apologies yet goes on to say they drank and loved it and wants to buy a case. Do you charge them for 13 bottles? In my career in retail and DtC it is much easier to retain a customer than create and grow one.
Similar, but not identical situation for me. Recently received some wines, with a couple of additional bottles that i’d previously ordered and already received. Shipper’s mistake, and I don’t think they realized it except when I told them.
Offer was keep the bottles for about a $10 discount each or ship back . . . seems a bit tight in comparison to the wine.com experience above, but should I be disappointed or simply decide whether I want two more of a wine I already bought at a modest discount?
As long as they are paying the shipping for the return, I think that’s a fair offer and you shouldn’t be disappointed. Free wine is nice, but it isn’t reasonable to expect it for a shipping mistake, which I had to remind myself a few years ago.
I’m on a mailing list of a winery that had some issues during fall shipping. IIRC, one box was missing three bottles of each of two wines and had three extra of each of two other wines. They told me to keep the extra bottles and sent me the missing ones. A few days later, another part of the shipment I got two cases of another wine, but only ordered one case. I hoped that they’d let me keep those extras as well, but they sent me a shipping label to return them. I admit that I felt disappointed until I thought about it for a few minutes. All I was really entitled to was the wines I’d paid for. They did more than they needed to the first time, but that generosity didn’t entitle me to an even more generous result the next time a mistake was made.
^ Thanks for the reasonableness check. Free wine is nice.
Maybe part of it I was a bit off put by the “offer” which was basically “thanks for your honesty . . . we can “give” you a discount on price roughly equal to the cost of return shipping.”