Everything About HoneyBaked Ham Online is Half-Baked!
Written: Dec 22 '06 (Updated Dec 22 '06)
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I have a small army of people descending on my home from all four corners of the world this holiday season. Well, okay, from all four corners of the southeast... Well, three corners of the southeast. But still... small army.
I was hit with the terrifying realization that I would have to feed them all, about a week and a half ago. Coincidentally, on that very same day, a small catalogue from the HoneyBaked Ham Company showed up in my mailbox. I was struck with the sheer brilliance of it all: Order a ham and turkey combination for the holidays and forego killing myself for a meal! So I went online to the HoneyBaked Ham Online Store (www.honeybakedonline.com) to place my order.
About HoneyBaked Ham and their Online Store
I have been eating ham from HoneyBaked Ham for as long as I can remember. When I was a small child, my mother and father would get a gift certificate redeemable for one of their huge hams from a good friend of the family each Christmas. So we'd have turkey and we'd have ham. It was fabulous. Not only was the ham good at the meal, but it was even better as leftovers.
Over the years, when I moved away from home and lived on my own, I got away from HoneyBaked hams. Occasionally I would pick up a "honeybaked ham" imitator at the grocery store, and it was good, but I always remember the hams from the HoneyBaked Ham company tasting even better.
HoneyBaked Ham has a store location about twenty miles from me. I could have reserved my food for pickup from the store, but with my hectic schedule and holiday traffic, I did not feel like driving twenty miles out of my way to lug ham home for the holidays. Instead I chose to use their online store, which I perceived as being more convenient (it's not) than the store location.
Using the HoneyBaked Ham Online Website
Placing an order was fairly easy. Their main page has a splash screen that presents you with a number of options, including a list of the combinations and meals you can order from their online store. A simple click or two is all it takes to drill down to the meals section.
I purchased the HoneyBaked Oven-Roasted Turkey Delicious Duo from the online store on December 14th, in the early afternoon. This combination costs $74.95 and includes an eight pound HoneyBaked Ham and a 2.5 pound oven roasted turkey breast, with the honeybaked glaze on it as well.
Purchasing the items was simple: I simply added the combination to the cart and checked out, entering in my email address, credit card information and postal address on the order. The total order came to $95.15 broken down thusly:
- HoneyBaked Delicious Duo: $74.95
- Shipping: $17.95
- Tax: $2.25
The shipping seemed pretty steep, but hey, what price convenience, right?
The very first words at the top of my order summary said, "If you provided us with an e-mail address, you will receive notification of your order status as it makes its way through processing and shipping. You can also check on the status of your order by going to the See My Orders section."
I printed my receipt as a PDF, and noted with just a little consternation the expected delivery date of 12/21 on my order. It didn't leave much "fudge room" if anything held up the process, but I had confidence.
About that Half-Baked Support
That confidence began to wane when, after several days, I still had no e-mail confirmation of my order, much less any of the promised notifications about my "order status as it makes its way through processing and shipping".
Five days after I placed my order, I dug out my PDF receipt and went to the HoneyBaked website, expecting that I could put in my e-mail address and, as promised, check the status of my order by going to their "See My Orders" section. I did not recall being told that I needed to explicitly create an account, and honestly I didn't remember if I had or not.
When I got to the site, not only could I not get any sort of validation on their website with my e-mail address, but I also could not, for the life of me, even find a section of the website with the label, "See My Orders" as my receipt had promised. So, I decided to call the company. I had my order information in front of me and I figured I would simply politely ask them for a status, and perhaps inquire about authenticating on the site so I could track my order. I just wanted to know everything was on schedule. I was not harried. I was not angry. I was merely curious.
A Little Tip for HoneyBaked Ham Employees: Don't Work in Support if You Haven't Got the Attitude For It
I called HoneyBaked Ham Online's 1-800 number and after about eight rings, a very terse woman picked up the phone. HoneyBaked Ham is located in Atlanta, and while her Southern accent was thick, there was no sugary sweet southern niceness in it at all. Her tone immediately made it clear that I was interrupting her valuable time, and that I should stop bothering her immediately, if not sooner, with my pesky little inquiry.
I asked if it was possible for her to check on the status of my order. With a sigh she asked for my order number, so I gave it to her. She said it was, "On time". That was all she would tell me. I said that I was concerned because you see, the receipt said I could check my order online, but I couldn't get authenticated on the website, and that I'd really like to just know where in the "processing and shipping" process it was. I asked if she could help me.
With another exasperated sigh, she said, "Listen, it's on time. If you wanted it earlier you should have gotten expedited shipping. That's all I can tell you."
Having gotten the message from this delightful Southern belle, I thanked her sarcastically for her (precious) time and hung up the phone.
It's WHAT?
On December 19th, I received a notice from QuantumView, a UPS shipment notification, that my order had shipped. I checked the UPS website and saw the famous "Billing Information Received" notification, with a delivery date of December 20th. I was pleased. My order would be showing up a day ahead of time!
I watched December 20th as my status stayed on "Billing Information Received". I contacted UPS and they informed me that the status would only change when HoneyBaked Ham actually provided them with the items to ship. I had two more business days in which to get my purchase in time for Christmas.
On December 21st, the status finally changed as UPS finally got the package. The new status? "Delivery Rescheduled" to 12/22. The very last day possible prior to the holidays. I was infuriated that it takes eight days to get an order delivered from a location just a few hours away from where I live.
I sweated bullets about whether or not I would get the food in time, and was highly relieved when today, my favorite UPS woman in the world pulled up and ran up to my doorstep to finally deposit the ham and turkey combination that I had ordered eight days earlier.
Order Quality
I pulled the items out of the box and was surprised at how small an eight pound ham really is. I didn't expect it would be as large as the mammoth hams my parents had at Christmas, but I wasn't expecting "puny" either. The items were both packed in vacuum packaging, and put inside a special foam insulated container.
The box didn't contain a receipt or any other confirmation about my order. It just had the ham, the turkey, and a "how to serve" booklet packed in it.
Both items arrived still partially frozen, although I was able to sample each after opening them up so I could store them properly in my refrigerator to allow them to continue the thawing process that the pamphlet tells me should take two to three more days.
The HoneyBaked Ham was tasty, but honestly I think that the ambrosia flavor I remember is more the taste of nostalgia than the taste of a superior product. It tastes like the hams I can purchase in the stores. The turkey? Well, it's okay but it didn't bowl me over either. The honey coating is messed up on it and neither meat is nearly the presentation spectacle that you see on HoneyBaked Ham's website.
After seeing the product, I decided to still go with Plan B to supplement the ham and turkey - we're also serving a beef tenderloin at our Christmas meal. Honeybaked Ham's namesake product and the oven roasted turkey are really only suitable for accompaniments and leftovers. If you're looking for a grand "Waaaah!" type of spectacle with heavenly voices from HoneyBaked Ham, what they shipped me would disappoint terribly. And for $75. The word "rip-off" comes to mind.
Summary
If you're thinking of buying a HoneyBaked Ham from their online store, I have just one word for you: DON'T!!!
Don't be misled by their product catalogue that shows premium, delicious treats practically spilling over the plate onto a luxuriously set table.
Don't be fooled by the high prices into thinking that you are paying for premium service or food. You're not.
Don't be suckered into thinking that ordering a HoneyBaked Ham will result in anything more special or relaxing than what you can get in a grocery store, or at HoneyBaked Ham's retail outlets. In fact, drive the twenty miles if you have to, so you can buy the ham from a person behind a counter rather than trusting Honeybaked Ham Online and their sullen customer service reps to do the driving for you.
I fretted for a good couple of days because HoneyBaked Ham and their online store don't communicate with the customer after the sale. I would have rather driven the twenty extra miles.
It shouldn't take six or seven days for a simple combination order to process and ship. And such a simple order shouldn't get delayed in getting to UPS. And you know what? When it does, for the nearly $100 I paid, I should **** well be able to logon to the website to see the status and if I can't, then I shouldn't get a nasty attitude from a lousy support rep at the company.
HoneyBaked Ham's product isn't nearly as premium as I remember it and their service is bargain basement quality at best. This was my first, and last, experience ever ordering from the store. By all means, please learn from my experience and don't waste your time. You can do much, much better elsewhere.
But if you simply must...
HoneyBaked Ham Online
http://www.honeybakedonline.com
1-800-367-2426
Recommended:
No
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mrs-j
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"Man was made for something better than disturbing dirt." - Oscar Wilde
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