RE: UKNM: Last Minute or How not to run an e-commerce site?

[Martha Lane Fox]

Hi there!

I am Martha, one of the co-founders of lastminute.com and I am extremely

disappointed to hear that someone had an appalling time trying to buy at

lastminute.com.  I am very sorry that it was such a nightmare!  As the

user rightly said, that is not the way to run an e-commerce site and to

build a trusted brand.


There are no excuses for the kind of experience that this potential

customer had on our site. lastminute.com is trying to delight its

customers and make sure that everybody leaves our site wanting to buy on

the web again and again and again.  This is why we guarantee the lowest

prices for our travel products and will refund the difference if people

find it cheaper elsewhere AND give 20 pounds extra just for the hassle.


Our customer service team are also disappointed that a potential

customer had this feedback for them - they endeavour to help everyone

complete their transaction on or offline and were surprised that someone

had been told to keep trying when it was clear that was a problem with

our system not the customer.  I would love the chance to compensate this

customer and see if we can help them - at least send them a bottle of

champagne!


The only explanation I can offer is that earlier this week we added two

new servers to our infrastructure to cope with the unprecedented demand

and they were not configured correctly meaning that we suffered

unacceptable levels of downtime at the beginning of the week. As a

result we had a rush of telephone calls and not enough staff to deal

with them.  I can only say sorry that we were not better prepared. We

have grown much more rapidly than we anticipated in the last month and

have to move offices, get new phone networks and more staff (half the

company are working off cardboard boxes at the moment!).  This is too

common a cry in our industry and is certainly not the customer's problem

but we are working hard to improve our processes and offer the kind of

customer service that never fails as it clearly did in this instance.


Again I am very sorry that this customer had such a bad time and that

this is their first experience of lastminute.com.  


I hope that you will give us the chance to prove that we are a good

e-commerce site and can manage our growth effectively.

Martha Lane Fox


-----Original Message-----

From: Mario Tilney-Bassett [

mariotforesight [dot] co [dot] uk (mailto:mariotforesight [dot] co [dot] uk)

]

Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 1999 9:11 PM

To:

uk-netmarketingchinwag [dot] com

Subject: UKNM: Last Minute or How not to run an e-commerce site?



Hello!


Is there anyone on the list from Last Minute.com?


Just had a terrible first shopping experience on the site trying to book

an

Easter break.

Slow access, more crashes than I care to remember, once just after I had

entered credit card details (!) - the phone helpline operator told me

three

times to keep trying the site and actually said they would prefer not to

take phone bookings.


Cut to a few hours later - still no access, and I am told that now the

holiday has all sold out. I received an apology and was told "small

company...can't cope with demand...etc"

This answer did not reassure me, especially after I had entered my

credit

card details in time for a crash.


Outcome: A customer (not a potential customer, but a real, ready to

spend

customer) can't spend the 500 GBP they were perfectly happy to. What's

worse

is that they now have a bad opinion of LM.com


Surely this isn't the way to run an ecommerce site or build a brand with

regular custom? What use is promotion without infrastructure to support

it?


I've happily shopped on the Internet before - most recently at

Interflora

and Amazon - but if this was my first dalliance with e-commerce, I would

not

be too keen to rush back into cyberspace.


M


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