Busy Busy Busy

So... as many of you know, I work for Jim and that takes me away from the house several days per week.  This week, for example... I left Sunday night to go to Jim's and came back on Tuesday late night.  Then, I was home Wednesday and Thursday, and left immediately after my dog class on Thursday to head to Texas with Jim.  It is currently about 6:30 pm on Sunday, and I just got home.

Now, I'm not mentioning this because I want you to feel sorry that I'm busy or what not, but I do want people to understand that I have more going on in my life than just sitting here and making houses, or toys, or whatever.  If I could devote 24/7 to that, sure, that'd be great, but there's also chins to care for, phone calls to return, and so on and so forth.

If I get a webstore order and I know I will be gone for a few days, I will often email and let that person know, hey, I'm leaving tomorrow and won't be back until a certain day, and I will even ask, is that ok with them, or would they rather have a refund, or...?  Because I want my customers to be happy and satisfied.

So I had one customer who ordered a custom item.  I hadn't even had a chance to cut the item, due to (not only) being gone for 5 days this week, but also because.... I have other orders ahead of that person's.  She had emailed me a bit after the order was submitted, asking about the status of it.  I responded, telling her what I said above, about how I'd be in Texas and how I could build it send it out right away when I got back (Monday, as in tomorrow), or if she'd rather have the refund, I could do that.  So the emailed ended, with me asking what she wanted to do.

I didn't hear back for a few days, so I re-sent that email.  Still nothing,  Fast forward to when I'm in Texas and I check my email to find out that I had a paypal dispute opened, for a non-received item.  In the dispute, it was mentioned that this person never heard back from me, and because of that, they opened the dispute.  I try to think positive, so in my response to her dispute, I posted about the same as what I said in the email... it wasn't that I wasn't getting back to her... heck, I could post screenshots of the email... but that I assumed she must not have been receiving them (sometimes me emails go to the junk folders for some people) because I hadn't heard back.  So I asked if she'd rather have the item or get the refund.  She wanted the refund, so I refunded the order.  That in itself is not a big deal. I acknowledge that we live in a world where everyone has Amazon Prime and can get their order in 2 days with free shipping -- and so many people think that applies to just about anything out there.  Not saying that this is necessarily what happened here, but I  understand that that's how some people are, and that's why I do my best to get my items sent out as quickly as possible.

One last thing -- when you do order from the webstore, please keep in mind that I do have other customers as well.  To be fair to all, I try to do the orders in the order in which they are received.  I may start on another order, if parts of the first order have to dry for 24 hours, or so, but if the orders are smaller and can all be put together in one sitting, then I go in order.  That way, no orders get priority over others (well, except food, I try to send out food ASAP) and no one feels like their order is being pushed to the back of the line.  That is all.