Hello,
I'm writing this e-mail because of how disappointed I am in how things have
changed. I don't appreciate the bait and switch tactics Birchbox has
used. When I signed up, the samples I got looked almost as nice as the
examples on your website. Definitely not quite as "deluxe", but whatever,
I had no intention of being picky & was pretty excited about the boxes.
Your website also originally said '4-5 hand picked deluxe samples' then;
now it only says 'hand picked samples'. This company has quietly switched
from what people signed up for, which was pretty neat, to something
inferior. Foil packets and miniscule samples that stores give away for
free are *not* deluxe. And that is what people signed up for. This is
definitely not the first time Birchbox has been less than honest about
things either.
I will be canceling my subscription at some point in the next two weeks.
I've given the subscription a good run--9 or 10 months. I'm a very
reasonable person and I understand that you can't please everyone, but this
is about giving money to a company that previously was less than honest
with me concerning my orders and now has clandestinely changed what it
offers without letting anyone know. It is not respectable and I can't
continue to use this service. The bait & switch was the last straw.
If rumor has it that things have improved, I am open to re-subbing. While
the scripted responses are frustrating, your cust. svc dept. *has* always
been very nice and pleasant to deal with; they generally have a fairly
short response time as well, which is good. I also really like the
loyalty/points program you've devised! I realize the company is still
rather young and that mistakes will be made. I can only hope Birchbox
learns from these mistakes because the box subscription is a great
concept. That's why it's such a shame the things I loved about Birchbox
have been undercut by the deception.
Hoping for future improvement,
[me]
PS: I've subscribed to Beauty Army and Ipsy for the time being. In
reading reviews, their customers seemed more content than Birchbox's. I'm
not quitting due to box disparity, but that did seem to be a common
complaint during my research. Some of the people complaining were just
whiners who won't be happy no matter what, but perhaps if the samples you
sent were a little more uniform and/or if everyone got to pick a single
item from a selection of one of each beauty genre (i.e. haircare,
fragrance, makeup, anti-aging, nail care/polish, etc.) for their box and
leave the rest a surprise, at least everyone would get *one* thing that
they knew they would like in it. Making the sample items a little more
uniform would also leave less room for packing/shipping errors and delays.
There seem to be a lot of issues with shipping recently, for which Birchbox
refused to take any responsibility. That's another thing the reviews and
commenters were very unhappy about. Vendor packages don't sit on a UPS
truck for a week without moving, and everyone but the most gullible is
aware of this. Own up to your mistakes.
/emoticons/
