Thursday, January 9, 2014

AndrewChristian.com's Poor Customer Service


For many years, I have always tried to support LGBT and LGBT-friendly businesses.  One of those companies is 10percent.com, which started out giving 10 percent of all their profits to LGBT organizations and charities.  I also frequent Starbucks when I can, since they are very LGBT-friendly. Amazon.com is another LGBT-friendly business that I use a lot. Another company that I have enjoyed being a patron of is AndrewChristian.com.  However, I am beginning to change my mind.

I love Andrew Christian products and have never been dissatisfied with anything I have received, but I have to admit that I have been disappointed with how long it takes for an item to ship and whether or not the products actually are shipped.  I was especially disappointed in my latest order because I will be leaving for a cruise in 3 days and believed that I had ordered a swimsuit in plenty of time for it to arrive to take on the cruise, since I placed the order on December 29.  Two weeks should have been plenty of time, especially since I could have ordered it from Amazon and been guaranteed 2-day or overnight shipping.  This is quite frustrating as I have sent one email to AndrewChristian.com previously, nearly a week ago, and have not received any response, and after sending another email, and as of the time I'm writing this, I still have not received a response.

The thing is, it's more than just a swimsuit order.  I received a shipping notification of  two of the items I ordered, a pair of underwear and a bracelet I though would look cool to wear on the cruise.  Since they were an incredible price on sale, I was supposed to get all three items for $20, which included shipping.  The shipping notification showed that I had been charged for the two previously mentioned items and the swimsuit.  However, it was not shown to have been shipped.  AndrewChrisitan.com's policy is that you are not charged until the item ships.  Since I had been charged, I hoped that e swimsuit would be included in the order. When the package arrived yesterday, the swimsuit was not included in the shipment that I received, even though my order is marked as complete when I checked my account on the Andrew Christian website.  I checked my bank account, and I was charged for all three items.  As I previously stated, I wrote AndrewChrisitan.com's customer service and still no response.

I would not be as bothered by this if it was the first time that my order had not been fulfilled correctly.  This is the second order that I have placed with AndrewChristian.com in which only a partial shipment of the order was filled, and the other items never shipped, though they are still for sale on the website. The previous order was placed a month before.  However, in the case of the earlier order, I was not charged for the items that did not ship, as I have been this time.

I am a loyal supporter of LGBT businesses, and as previously stated I am a fan of Andrew Christian products, but I've just been so disappointed in the poor customer service.  I have often recommended Andrew Christian products, but the quality of the products doesn't really matter, if the quality of service is so poor. No matter how sexy the models (see above picture) or the hotness of their videos, I feel that I can't trust AndrewChristian.com enough to order from them again.  Since I have had this problem, I wanted to write this post to warn my readers that if you have been contemplating ordering from AndrewChristian.com, I would suggest that you don't.  The customer service is very poor; the reliability is nearly non-existent; and the communication is absent between the business and the consumer.  If you decide to order anyway, do so at your own risk.  I, for one, will not be ordering from the Andrew Christian website again.

Below is the Andrew Christian Guarantee, do not believe it.  The truth is, it's not "that simple" because Customer Service at AndrewChristian.com won't communicate with you.

UPDATE:  Though it is too late to order a new swimsuit before the cruise and over a week after I sent the first email (not to mention blogging and tweeting about it), I finally received the following response from a Customer Service Representative of AndrewChristian.com.
I am very sorry that this happened.
We appear to be out of stock on these items. I have refunded you $**.** for the latest order. For order [previous order #], you received store credit accessible on the checkout page of your AC account. We are restocking items and have great new items now available on the website as well as a great promotion. We hope you will stick with us. We certainly appreciate your orders. 
By the way, I tried to use the store credit from the previous order  when I checked out for my latest order and it refused to process it.  I have to admit, I'm still not entirely satisfied.  Shipping is too slow and customer service is slow to respond to emails.

10 comments:

Robert said...

I would suggest you tweet about it and mention Andrew Christian by @andrewchristian. Companies will often monitor their twitter feed and if a customer is dissatisfied, they will often do what they can to make things right. It's worth a shot.

Robert said...

And have a great time on your cruise! Have fun, you've earned it!

Anonymous said...

Robert beat me to it. Tweet your complaint. Don't go negative but dissatisfied and DO mention it was for a cruise. If you don't have a twitter account or want to keep this a bit more private, open one for THE CLOSET PROFESSOR and include the blog - they'll respond. And you'll probably get some free stuff.

As for myself, I have ordered a few things but the last item was very disappointing. I ordered the surprise grab bag (ok it was the second one in 3 months) I really thought I'd get a complete mishmash of items, instead I got 3 of the same style but in different colors and it was the same as the first bag. I won't order the bad again or at least not for a long time.

Have a great cruise.

crotchdiver1 said...

S' why I order from Aussie Bum. Never a problem. N' yeah I'd like to see you...well, you know. giggle. You go dude. I'm stuck here with my husband and your on a Gay cruise full of men. How fair is that?!?!? LOL

Michael Dodd said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MAC said...

I enjoy Andrew Christian underwear as well. It does take a while to receive the orders, 2 weeks or more. I suggest tweeting your experience as well. When I was on Twitter, AC responded and retweeted several of my comments. You never know, you may get some free undies out of it. Enjoy the cruise!!!

Anonymous said...

Tweet it, Facebook it, blog it. My experience is similar to MAC's. When I've complained, social media seemed to get responses at least. It's like they moved all customer service people to Twitter instead of Outlook. But if no results, then my wallet walks.

Peace <3
Jay

RB said...

Andrew Christian was just featured on Millionaire Matchmaker. He seems like a nice guy. The gay Hugh Heffner. Awesome house in LA.

I know....unrelated to your customer service issue.

Anonymous said...

Joe,
Can you please contact me at jennifer@andrewchristian.com. I'd really appreciate this.

Anonymous said...

Not sure if the above comment is a joke from someone there but am dealing with the terrible customer service right now. As future readers can see, it takes them a while to respond. Look at that 2 year gap people!!!!!