Office Depot Online has earned my patronage for life!
Written: Oct 20 '01
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The Bottom Line
If product information and order tracking are improved, this site will earn five stars! Office Depot's customer service is like none I have ever experiences from an online store.
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Imagine this, if you will: you are a parent, with two toddlers in the home, and you are in need of printer ink cartridges. Not just any cartridges, but Hewlett Packard cartridges for a four-year-old printer, one cartridge being one (particularly for photos) that is no longer carried by any area office store. What do you do? You could do what this mother of two-year-olds used to do, which involved a 30 to 40 minute trip to a store, dragging toddlers along, then finding that with at least one crabby child on hand, you get to navigate the Superstore, tuning out crabbiness in search of the right print cartridges. (On a positive note, crabby children do tend to become magnets for salespeople offering to help, as they try to rid the store of the screaming child as quickly as possible.) Do I recommend this course of action? No, I do not (nor do I recommend the use of run-on sentences as the one above!). What do I recommend? Well, if you guessed Office Depot's online store, you are correct!
In my review of my Office Depot online experience, allow me to begin by stating that I have only used this service one time. The office supplies we use can generally be purchased at the not-too-far-away WalMart, and trips to Staples or Office Depot are few and far between. (This, of course, is my present, mother-of-twin-toddlers, life. In my past professional life, stopping by Staples was no big issue. Neither were diapers or car seats.) My single experience was so exceptional, however, that I simply had to share it with the epinions community.
So what was my experience? Well, you DID ask...
The initial visit
It was the middle of August. Although purchasing new print cartridges was at the bottom of my "to do" list (meaning I had forgotten I needed to do so and likely wouldn't remember until it was too late), I was reminded I needed to do so when I received an ad from MyPoints, offering an incentive to purchase printer supplies from the Office Depot online store. If I purchased over $50 of supplies, I would get free shipping and "points." Now, though I often read the ads I receive through MyPoints, I only actually order something once in a blue moon. Remembering our great need for print cartridges, recalling the difficulty I was having in finding a store that still carried the photo cartridge I was looking for, and forgetting that we would not be experiencing a blue moon until November*, I visited Office Depot online at www.officedepot.com. It couldn't hurt to look, I figured.
Look I did. What I found was a clear interface that made it relatively simple to find the exact ink cartridges I needed amidst the sea of techno-stuff. (Yes, I just coined that word myself... I kind of like it. I may need to use it again sometime.) A simple, red menu bar across the top of the screen offered shortcuts to use for reaching common parts of the site. The third label, "toner/ink quickfind," was a life saver. I clicked the button, and answered the questions as to what type of ink I needed for what make and model of printer, and PRESTO, there was the list of cartridges my printer could use! (I must say, this was much more helpful than the salesperson on my previous visit to Staples.) Pleased to see the photo cartridge, along with the black and color cartridges like ours that were dangerously low (I had broken my "always purchase a spare cartridge once you replace one" rule), I decided that MyPoints and Office Depot had likely made a sale. Not one to spend more than $50 on a whim, I bookmarked the page and returned the next day.
The purchase
I did indeed return the next day. Making certain to follow the "MyPoints" link (so as to receive those silly little points that would add enough to my total to earn a $25 Target gift certificate), off I went to Office Depot. My experience was not perfect, but it was pleasant (as far as shopping online for office supplies is concerned). I decided to order one photo cartridge, one color cartridge, and two black cartridges. I was a bit frustrated to find that the Office Depot brand refurbished cartridges were out of stock, but the prices for the HP brand were still better than I had ever seen in a brick and mortar store. Out of curiosity, I compared prices with Staples online, and for two of the three cartridges, Office Depot had better pricing. The third was a tie. Convinced I was getting a deal, I completed my order on the secure site. The interface was clear and easy to follow, and I did not seem to have any difficulty. I discovered that with or without MyPoints, orders over $50 receive free shipping. I was not completely clear about the time of shipping, but this was not an issue for me, as the cartridges were not an immediate need.
As I was completing my order, I had to leave information about the delivery address, and it actually said the items would be delivered the following business day - wow! I'd believe that when I saw it, but whatever they say, I thought. It was a Friday, so I completed my order and decided to forget about it until the following week.
At the close of the order, I was given to option of filling out a "Bizrate" survey about my experience. I did so, pretty positive about everything except for the fact that the refurbished cartridges I'd wished to order were out of stock, and no information had been available as to how quickly they may be in. As a result, I'd ordered the more expensive product.
The following week
Monday came... and Monday went. The online receipt I had promptly received offered information about where I could check my order status online. I decided to do so. There it was, listed in detail, and as for the delivery status, it said... DELIVERED!! Now, hey there! I just ordered $100 in printer cartridges, haven't yet received them, and it says delivered?! Whooaa!
It was Tuesday morning, so certain that somebody from customer support HAD to be there, I found their number on the site and called. (This information, thankfully, was not difficult to find.) Armed with my order number and information, I was prepared to find out to WHOM this had been delivered! On the other end of the line was one of the most peaceful, cheerful voices I've ever heard manning a customer support line. I shared my concern, and she quickly brought up my order information. "Well Honey," she explained, "the 'delivered' on the web site was just telling you that it was delivered to UPS. It ought to arrive by Thursday, and here is the tracking number." We conversed briefly about the confusion of calling a package "delivered" when it has not reached its destination, and she wholeheartedly agreed, telling me that the online order status section of the website is in the process of having major redevelopment completed. Well, okay, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. She smiled and told me to have a wonderful day (I could HEAR her smiling!), and she was right. That afternoon, the UPS truck pulled up. And there was my box from Office Depot.
Now before I describe my order, I shall share one more customer service experience. Remember that Bizrate survey? I received a personal note from an Office Depot customer service representative, apologizing for the lack of refurbished cartridges, and explaining that these items are so popular they are difficult to keep in stock. Interestingly, as I am writing this review, I did a check and they are currently in stock. The representative told me they were trying to acquire larger numbers to fulfill customers' needs, and they have evidently succeeded.
The package
The box was a bit large for four printer cartridges, but not overwhelmingly so. The "empty" space was filled with loosely crumpled brown paper, and a clearly printed receipt was included with my four print cartridges. I looked... photo cartridge - yup. Color cartridge - yup. Pack of two black cartridges... hey, wait a minute! This is a pack of two COLOR cartridges! I don't need no stinkin' three color cartridges - this printer will probably be replaced before I could use that many! Fuming at their error, I looked carefully at the receipt. The cartridges were all listed, though the double pack only had the item number and "ink cartridges," not the word color. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach... had I actually ordered the wrong thing? I checked my email receipt, then visited the website. You guessed it - though it doesn't SAY color anywhere in the description, the cartridges I ordered were indeed color! The black two-pack was just a little further down on the page. That'll teach me.
Already in a frustrated mood (frustrated mostly at myself -there had even been photos of the cartridge boxes, I just hadn't been able to see the details clearly enough to notice the color symbol!), I carefully folded the receipt in the box with the two-pack, and set it back on the table in our study. There is an Office Depot about 40 minutes away, and surely I could take a trip there sometime in the next couple of weeks. I didn't want to deal with sending it back in, and as the steam was creeping out my ears, I wasn't in the mood to call customer service. This was, after all, my fault.
About two weeks later...
Another of those Bizrate follow-up surveys came my way. This time, it wanted to know how satisfied I was with my order now that I'd received it. I told the truth: the order was NOT what I had wanted, but the mistake was indeed my own. However, I felt it would be helpful if ink cartridge descriptions would give more than just a number, but clearly stated the color of the ink as well. I told them I was planning to exchange part of the order at an area Office Depot, as soon as I could get up the gumption to either cart along twin toddlers or find a sitter. (I had to milk the sympathy for all it's worth, you know.) I was pleased with the timeliness of the order (though I described my confusion regarding the delivery time), and this experience would not keep me from ordering there in the future. I'd just have to be much more careful about the exact items I needed.
I truly had not expected any response - I hadn't been with it enough to contact customer service regarding the problem, but they responded anyhow. A day or two later, I received a kind note from another customer service representative, Elyse, asking if she could help. I explained my difficulty, and asked if it was okay if I just returned it to the store not too far away. (Nothing much is all too close to Upland, Indiana. There is an amazing ice cream place in town with over 100 flavors of shakes, but I digress.) Elyse responded that it was actually simpler if I would return it via mail, and she could issue a UPS call tag if need be. If necessary, I said I'd be willing to do this - whatever she deemed best.
I heard back the next day and was amazed. Elyse had looked into it and had decided to make my day. (Those were not her exact words, but that is what she did.) To save me further trouble, Elyse said that I could just KEEP the color cartridges, and the pack of two black cartridges would be sent free of charge. Realize this is more than a $50 value - it was more than half of my order! What Elyse doesn't know is that those color cartridges will allow me to print some really wonderful Christmas cards that I had kind of dismissed, as I thought they'd use up too much expensive ink. AND she saved me a trip across the county with two toddlers! I wonder if perhaps Elyse, too, had forgotten that there is no "blue moon" until November of this year.
The Final Word
As you could see, my experience with officedepot.com was not perfect, nor was it all-inclusive. I spent quite a bit of time browsing different parts of the site before writing this review, and I found it simple to navigate an relatively easy to understand. Many items are accompanied by photos (more than Staples for items like the said print cartridges), and prices on many items were better at officedepot.com as well.
Part of my lackluster ordering experience was my own fault. HP has changed the way print cartridges are numbered, and I ought to have relied on more than just a word description when ordering something as pricey as this. Also, after my first positive experience with customer support, I ought to have called right away to remedy the situation. However, I didn't, and I didn't. And they treated me well anyhow! After experiencing the caring, helpful individuals in customer support, I am certain that the next time I am in need of items of this sort, officedepot.com will be dealing with me once again. For their sake, I hope the catch me on a day that I'm a little less flaky ...or a day that their site's clarity surpasses any other. Either way, I can't help but recommend officedepot.com for office supply purchases. With free shipping for large orders and excellent customer support, it is hard to go wrong!
blue moon: the second full moon in a single calendar month. In 2001, there will be a full moon on November 1 and 30. Because full moons are roughly 29.5 days apart, this only occurs about once each 2 1/2 years. For more information about a "blue moon," visit http://www.obliquity.com/astro/bluemoon.html.
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
Member: Angela Knight
Location: Indiana
Reviews written: 24
Trusted by: 18 members
About Me: Mother of twins and teacher by trade, I love my husband, daughters, and my Lord!
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