When I first reached out to Beth she was cheerful and nice and I immediately trusted her. However, my experience after buying the labels just kept getting worse and worse A few weeks after I had put in the order I reached out to Beth asking for a status on the progress. She told me that one of the orders had been completed, but that the other one was backed up because of technical problems. She repeatedly said this was through no fault of her own and she had no control over it. She was suddenly getting very defensive. When the second order was finally completed I kindly asked her if I could choose a shipping option that would guarantee a quick arrival. She said it was fine and would choose 2 day shipping but then chose a 1-3 day shipping option. This was frustrating as we were in the final steps of making samples and needed the labels. I reached out to Beth asking her why she didn't choose a quicker option (I was willing to pay for it) and this was when things got EXTREMELY unprofessional, appalling and down right bizarre. Beth quickly became SUPER DEFENSIVE. Here is her response to my e-mail where I expressed my frustration :
"Cassandra take your frustrations out elsewhere!! I did the best I could for you!! It took you forever and a day to approve proofs and I was the one who constantly emailed you regarding them with no responses for a long time. Remember that?? Then we had some equipment issues which were beyond my control. I kept you in the loop the whole time! Then I upgraded your shipping to 2 day priority (at no charge to you) and NOT 1-3 day!! I paid for TWO day!! I cannot control the speed of USPS. Can you??? Be very careful where you throw blame!!! I will NOT tolerate this bad attitude when I did nothing but try my hardest for you!!!!"
WOW. I was very shocked with this childish, defensive behavior. The threat a the end to "be very careful" was extremely personal and unprofessional. And dishonest--she did not "follow up with me repeatedly" and she did not choose 2-day shipping. I let Beth know that I was shocked and that I would not be returning to Custom Labels 4 U for future business. She responded:"I too will be sharing my experience as well, and in in many places. After being treated this way I am thankful to lose you as a customer. How incredibly rude and wrong."
Again Beth resorts to childish, overly defensive, unprofessional behavior. I have never received such bizarre and utterly appalling customer service from any vendor ever before. In the end the labels arrived too late to be utilized. But, that was not much of a loss given that they came out so cheap and bad. We will be throwing these labels away (a loss of $79) and never returning to Custom Labels 4 U. I would advise you not either.
Response from the manufacturer
It would be unrealistic for us to believe we can please 100% of our customers all the time, though as a small family US business, we sincerely give it our best try. We are in the business of "custom" and we understand each client has specific needs. It would also be unrealistic to expect 100% positive reviews or feedback. The reality is that most of the happy customers will not take the time to post feedback, but most of the unhappy ones will go out of their way. It's a fact of life. This particular customer, Cassandra Michel of Citizen Hound Dog Walking Street Wear of SF was 100% correct, in that we were guilty of defensiveness. Without adding to the customer's fabricated and highly dramatic review, we will simply state that it was an excellent lesson learned for us in not responding to red flags and gut feelings, before they reach this level. Looking back, we should have cancelled the order and refunded Cassandra from the beginning, before production even started. When you're faced with relentless, loud, uncontrollable & extreme verbal abuse via phone, unreasonably slow (or no) responses to proofs when there is a deadline to meet, it should be a sign of things to come. The (extreme) level of anger, aggressiveness and verbal abuse displayed, (almost daily), that we allowed ourselves to be subjected to, left us emotionally exhausted and defensive. Though we are very sorry that the outcome was less than pleasant for Citizen Hound, we will know for the future, at what point to cut the relationship before things escalate. There was nothing we could do or say to please Cassandra Michel and also believe that her expectations of us and the woven label process were beyond unrealistic. As far as the quality of our woven labels, we do not need to "toot our own horn" - we let our many thousands of satisfied & repeat customers do that for us.
