Question - contact before payment

[the-vol.livejournal.com]

Hi there, A_B! I've recently started selling my comic book via mail and while things have gone very smoothly so far, there's one situation that has me questioning as to what is the correct approach to it.

To put it short, what do you do in a situation where someone has ordered a product from you but when it comes the time to pay, they don't and wont' answer to e-mails either (and there's no other way to contact them)? Is it okay to just drop it and leave it for the customer to get back in contact - if they even do - or should you first try to make sure your e-mails haven't been eaten by junk mail filters or some other black hole of the cyberspace?

I've had this happen a couple times now and while it hasn't caused any real issues, it does put me in that uncomfortable place where I just don't know how to properly handle the situation. Mainly because I'd hate to think the customer thinks I'm ignoring them or being unjustifiably slow with handling their order when there's just a technological hiccup preventing contact. But then again, I don't think it's all that polite to bombard them with an e-mail after e-mail to see what's up when no money has changed hands yet. They could've just decided they don't want the product after all, for all I know. I can understand sending one e-mail when the payment's due date comes asking if they're still going to buy, but if that goes unanswered as well I'm not sure how to proceed.

I'd like to hear your thoughts! Granted it's a very minor issue but I like to keep my customers happy and I'm not sure how to do that in a situation like this. :3
(Apologies if my English is funny - I'm not native.)

Comments

[gatekat.livejournal.com]

If no money has changed hands, one or two efforts to contact is quite enough.

I'd say one per method of contact -- email, skype, each site (DA, FA, Weasyl, etc) -- they give you with 24-48 hours between them is the most you want to try. Since they gave you one e-mail address, one effort to contact them is enough, and is also reasonable.

[vauvakolibri.livejournal.com]

I'd just add a mention of an alternative way to contact you, say email and DA etc so if the customer can't get to you through email, they can use the alternative method. Or you could request such from the customer too.

I'd say that a lot of time people can just change their mind and forget/not feel comfortable telling it (this happens a lot with commission requests) etc, so I wouldn't get too anxious of it and just move on.

[zackfig.livejournal.com]

I'd not produce anything until you have gotten your money.

[syrusb.livejournal.com]

If you've contacted them a couple times already and they're not responding I would drop it. Make a note on your blog (and/or your product page) about alternative ways of a customer contacting you if you don't respond to an order within X amount of time, and move on. Maybe they changed their mind, maybe something came up. Who knows. Generally not worth the effort to pursue unless they were super enthusiastic about something.

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

If they don't answer the query email I usually send a 'Please let me know when you're ready to buy again!'

And end it.

Usually they'll wake up and say 'Oh nonono I want it *throws money at you*'

[fenris-lorsrai.livejournal.com]

Generally I'd say send a reminder after a day. If it hasn't been responded to after two days, send a second one stating if they don't respond by X date (3-4 days later), you'll consider transaction canceled. If they want to purchase again later, please use Y link.

Also look at the day of the week the order was placed, adjust those times accordingly. Not everybody has reliable internet OR free time, so they may well only check their e-mail on specific days they have time/access.

If its a weekday, you can probably assume they either have access at work OR time to check. You may NOT get a replay during weekend though. adjust the schedule accordingly.

If its placed on a weekend, they may only have access or time on the weekend. (parents house, library, no classes, etc) So make sure final contact mail doesn't give a due date until the end of following weekend as it may be the first chance they have to check e-mail at all.

[smokeandspots.livejournal.com]

1. Never do any work without at least a third or half of the full payment being delivered up front. Don't spend that money in case you need to do a refund and have a clause in your TOS that details how much of a refund will be given depending on how much work you've done.

2. If the guy isn't paying you, yeah, drop it until they do. You don't need to work for free.