Case Study: Dr.Ray.Com

Case Study: Dr.Ray.com

Dr. Ray seems to be a well-respected doctor in his field of medicine, which is health and nutrition. He has published books, developed vitamins, and contributes thoughtful content on his website. His commercial success has been aided by his business partner, Trisha Benson, whom advocated a lot of his marketable viability via the website and custom vitamins under Dr. Ray's name. Dr. Ray is not involved in the website technology, inventory, production or shipment of his company instead he focuses on the health content, marketing and customer service. Recently Dr. Ray received a disturbing letter from a loyal customer regarding a replenishment practice on his website. Essentially, the customer feels as though she was deceived because the website is designed to automatically enroll customers on auto-replenish for vitamins which is something she clearly informed a customer service representative that she did not want or choose. The customer, Joan Holliday, indicated she was treated poorly by a customer service representative and shipped two sets of vitamin packages that she did not order. She described herself as a loyal customer but pointed out that she would no longer patronize the website and, furthermore, inform others of her horrible experience with the company if they did not provide some sort of retributions such as a free 90-day supply of vitamins. This is something the customer service manager disagrees with.

The company is named after Dr. Ray and his persona is specifically tied to all facets of the business. The customer service manager, Jamie Gonzalez, may disagree with Joan Holliday and feel as though she does not have the right to a free 90-day supply of vitamins, however, at the end of the day it is Dr. Ray that will suffer both in the business world and personally because he has so much of himself tied to the brand. This is, also, true of Dr. Ray's business partner, Trisha Benson. She may have a lot to lose financially, however, her name is not at the forefront of the company. Therefore, Dr. Ray must carefully decide how to proceed in this situation and acknowledge the detriment that poor customer service practices could do to his image. Amazon.com has had and continues to have tremendous success as an on-line retailer and they chalk it up to the basics. In a recent interview, Amazon.com's CEO, Jeff Bezos indicated that it really is the basics his company seeks. They focus on selection, reliablility, convenience, fast delivery, and customer service. He further indicated,

"It's the cumulative effect of having this approach for 14 years. I always tell people, if we have a good quarter it's because of the work we did three, four, five years ago. It's not because we did a good job this quarter. We start with the customer and we work backwards. We learn whatever skills we need to service the customer". (Interview