Face palm

[Bobby_M]

Company generously donates gift certificates to several local brew competitions. Winner dude wants to use the giftcert, visits website, fills cart, goes to check out and can't find where to enter the GC number (hint, it's literally 1 inch away from the place order button). Checks out with a credit card anyway. Winner dude emails to cancel the order and states that he will tear up the GC and go elsewhere because there was no place to put the GC and he can't find a contact phone number anywhere on the site (it's right on the front page and the order was placed way after phone hours anyway).

You apparently can't give money away to people if it causes them any inconvenience.

 

[1977Brewer]

People who can't Internet will be the first to go in the robot uprising.

I'm fine with it.

 

[SnakeRidge]

Yeah, I err on the side of the computer being smarter than me. I would have sent a quick email like "I'm a doofus. Where exactly should I enter the gc #? Pictures would help."

 

[rappell]

You can't fix stupid. You have the best customer service/ support out there. We all appreciate what you do....

 

[mattd2]

Sounds like he's a winner

 

[Natdavis777]

.

 

[Inkleg]

Thanks for the reminder Bobby, I need to get a few things from you.

 

[Homercidal]

Can I have his Gift Certificate??

 

[Psylocide]

Can I have his Gift Certificate??

Probably nowhere to enter it though...

 

[WPStrassburg]

Yeah, I err on the side of the computer being smarter than me. I would have sent a quick email like "I'm a doofus. Where exactly should I enter the gc #? Pictures would help."

Yeah Captain Obvious, i would have if i could find the email button.....

 

[kombat]

Yeah, I err on the side of the computer being smarter than me. I would have sent a quick email like "I'm a doofus. Where exactly should I enter the gc #? Pictures would help."

Nah, it's the developer's fault. There's a whole field of computer science devoted to human factors, and the field is very well studied and understood. If knowledgeable programmers design a website taking the right factors into account, there should never be an issue. But if your site was built by the lowest bidder, who lacks such training and experience (or worse, a graphic designer who learned just enough programming to get by), you're going to get a "pretty" site that confuses the heck out of your customers.

 

[kombat]

Actually, I just went to check out the site and found a perfect example. Someone complained about not being able to find a way to email the site owner. I went to the site myself to see if this is a valid complaint, or if an email address is provided in the customary page (usually some variation on About Us/Contact Us). On the main page, in the top menu, there's an "About Us" menu, beneath which is a "Contact Us" item. Easy-peasy, right? How could any half-intelligent user miss this.

But when I clicked on the link, I was greeted with the following error:

"You do not have access to this page. Please contact customer service for further details on accessing this password protected section."

First of all, this page should obviously be public, not private. That's a site configuration error.

Secondly, the error message is nonsensical. How exactly am I supposed to "contact customer service" when the "Contact Us" page is precisely the page generating this error message?

Might want to fix that, @Bobby_M.

 

[The_Bishop]

I don't know what system/browser you're using, but it works just fine here. 'Contact Us' shows right up.

Also, the coupon code is pretty easy to find:

 

[TheDudeLebowski]

Was his name Sol Rosenberg? The guys pretty famous.

 

[kombat]

I don't know what system/browser you're using, but it works just fine here. 'Contact Us' shows right up.

Are you logged into a customer account? I just browsed over to the site, having never used it before, and without creating an account or logging in in any way. IE10 on Windows 7.

 

[Bobby_M]

Actually the "contact" link in the about us page was just in the process of being created to put the phone number in a THIRD place and the permissions were set to private by default. I fixed it like 2 minutes later.

The coupon code field does confuse people a bit because coupons are different than gift certificates. The coupons take amounts or percentages off the items in the cart. The GC code is a payment method that happens closer to finalizing checkout (though it's not hard to find because it's right by the button you hit to complete the order).