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It's too hard to buy method products online, on the phone or in stores
I had a really bad buying experience recently with method and it just got worse today. On July 8th I tried to order method products from their online store. After 30 minutes of building my cart (because the product navigation sucks) I tried to checkout. During checkout the credit card authorization timed out and my order didn't complete.
So I called the phone store to see if they could help. Their suggestion was to rebuild my cart and process the order on their end. After another 30 minutes my order was still not complete so I gave up and canceled the order altogether.
On July 10th I decided to give the online store another chance. After another 30 minutes building my card (because the product navigation still sucks!) I was able to complete my order. But upon reviewing my order confirmation I realized that one of the products I had wanted had magically been substituted for another product.
So then I emailed customer service asking them to substitute the product I didn't want for the one I did want. The email response I got back said that my order had already been processed so they couldn't substitute the item. Instead they suggested that I simply send back the product I didn't want once I received it and then they could process they exchange. But then several days later I received an email saying that my order was on hold because some of the products were not in stock. So which was it. Was my order already processed or was my order on hold?
It turns out that my order was on hold because I got an email yesterday saying that my order had shipped. That was August 5th, almost a month after I tried to place my original order. Because I had such a bad experience I wanted to give method some feedback, so I went to their site and found their contact email info@methodhome.com. I typed out a nice long email like this one explaining what had happened so they could work on fixing it. Today the response I got back was an email asking my to confirm my subscription to their email newsletter. WTF!
The final thing I want to point out about buying from method is that their product lines are not consistent across stores. I can't find the same set of method products at Whole Foods, Safeway, Target, etc. So if I want to use method products for all of the various cleaning solutions they provide I would have to go to several different stores to find all of the products I need.
So to sum up, I can't have a good experience buying method products online, on the phone or in stores. This is a horrible situation. Method has seriously issues and is sure to lose customers (like me) this way. Epic fail!
So I called the phone store to see if they could help. Their suggestion was to rebuild my cart and process the order on their end. After another 30 minutes my order was still not complete so I gave up and canceled the order altogether.
On July 10th I decided to give the online store another chance. After another 30 minutes building my card (because the product navigation still sucks!) I was able to complete my order. But upon reviewing my order confirmation I realized that one of the products I had wanted had magically been substituted for another product.
So then I emailed customer service asking them to substitute the product I didn't want for the one I did want. The email response I got back said that my order had already been processed so they couldn't substitute the item. Instead they suggested that I simply send back the product I didn't want once I received it and then they could process they exchange. But then several days later I received an email saying that my order was on hold because some of the products were not in stock. So which was it. Was my order already processed or was my order on hold?
It turns out that my order was on hold because I got an email yesterday saying that my order had shipped. That was August 5th, almost a month after I tried to place my original order. Because I had such a bad experience I wanted to give method some feedback, so I went to their site and found their contact email info@methodhome.com. I typed out a nice long email like this one explaining what had happened so they could work on fixing it. Today the response I got back was an email asking my to confirm my subscription to their email newsletter. WTF!
The final thing I want to point out about buying from method is that their product lines are not consistent across stores. I can't find the same set of method products at Whole Foods, Safeway, Target, etc. So if I want to use method products for all of the various cleaning solutions they provide I would have to go to several different stores to find all of the products I need.
So to sum up, I can't have a good experience buying method products online, on the phone or in stores. This is a horrible situation. Method has seriously issues and is sure to lose customers (like me) this way. Epic fail!
I’m frustrated
2
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Inappropriate?this is seriously troubling news about your site experience but i'm really glad you took the time to document it clearly and objectively. you raise a myriad of issues here which have been elevated to all areas of the company that your problems touch upon. i'd be happy to talk more about your issues if you'd like one-on-one, particularly site experience and navigation problems. with a redesign only just recently completed we're continuing to polish out the kinks and welcome in-depth feedback. post here with additional comments if you like or simply write info@methodhome.com ATTN: gunther to have a direct dialog about your experience. i'm happy and anxious to hear more.
I’m concerned but glad you wrote.
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Inappropriate?thanks for responding. i'm going to wait until my order arrives (still waiting) and go from there. i'll probably need to make an exchange so we'll see how that goes.
I’m undecided
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Inappropriate?ok. in the meantime if there's anything i can do personally to help ease your experience, please contact me, again at info@methodhome.com ATTN gunther. either way, it's insights like yours that we'd love to hear more about to help us tailor our site experience better.
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Inappropriate?okay so i wanted to wrap up this episode. here's how thing ended up. i got my stuff, but it took longer than i wanted it to and like i said before, the ordering process was painful. so by the time i did get my stuff i didn't need everything i had ordered. i contacted gunter (see the contact info above) and he helped my out. i think this is him:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/guntherlie
anyway i wrote to him about the things i wanted to exchange and he said that because i had helped them by highlighting the issues they had in their ordering process he wanted me to keep the products i had and he would just send me the other stuff i wanted.
this was great. it definitely made me feel better about their customer service. i know it doesn't fix any of the problems with their ordering process but it does two things:
1. it lets me know they care enough to send out some free stuff to try not to lose a customer
2. it lets me know that they really did hear what i had to say
i hope they can use this experience to improve things for people going forward. i still really like method products and overall i'm willing to keep working with them as they sort out their business. thanks gunther and best of luck to everyone at method. hopefully you'll get there.
I’m hopeful
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Inappropriate?I went or sent my brother or roommate to 4 different Target stores to get Go Naked hand soap.
No luck.
I tried the website, but it's all flash or whatever and takes too long to load and is impossible to navigate (we did determine that go naked still exists)
finally I googled to find the "where to buy" page, but when I went there, I only got a box asking me to choose the US or somewhere else (fine, I chose US) and then another box that said Choose location (or area or somethign) with a drop down list that had NO CONTENTS (oh, and no button to "submit" - I tried hitting enter. expectedly, nothing happened.
This, while on the phone with the person who is out trying to buy this for me.
Went back to google and found this page.
Gotta agree.
Drop the flash and make a normal website.
You may be saving the earth but your website takes so much of my electricity (in minutes spent on the site) that it's a wash. (no pun intended)
I give up. I'm going back to Ivory bar soap.
Thanks, Method.
PS - if you can find me a store (with Go Naked hand soap, or refill) within 10 miles of 33778 email me - pam at bakulanews dot com
I will NOT pay for shipping. Someone has to actually sell this stuff. They did a few months ago (although I had to drive 7 miles out of my way). -
Inappropriate?I had a slightly different but no less frustrating experience with getting method products. Just as the original poster I got fed up with trying to chase down method products in retail stores. So I turned to method's own shopping site. But whoever they are using for the actual operating of the web site and fulfillment are stuck in the early 90s -- the web site sucks, it has all the useless flashy pictures, and no convenient shopping functionality. Worse yet, once I placed my order I was informed that some product(s) were backordered. That's psychotic -- every reasonable web site now tells you this _before_ you place the order and tells you specifically what is backordered so that consumers can make intelligent decisions. I waited for two weeks and after a frustrating call with a poorly trained monkey in the customer support I ended up cancelling my entire order and buying alternative products locally and online.
Now, I want to use method products -- I do support the idea behind it, I like the products themselves, the packaging, the lack of strong smell. But the company's public face is that of a bunch of hippies instead of a serious, consumer-friendly business. There are alternatives out there, so get your act together. Retain a normal fulfillment company so that your loyal customers can at least reliably order your products and get them in reasonable time. If I order a detergent, it's because I need to use it in the next few days, not next year sometime.
Alec -
Inappropriate?I found out that the Go Naked handsoap at Target is kept near the laundry detergents, not in HBA department with the other flavors of Method hand soap. It's stupid, and apparently so is Method - you want want to negatwitter them or something...
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