Of Dice and Bots
Jun. 11th, 2025 03:29 pm![[personal profile]](/post-https-www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
green_knightI wanted to make a post about shiny math rocks, and will do so at a later time, but my experience has been marred a bit by customer service issues.
First was a major haul from an online dice company that makes stunning dice and which seems to be the only UK supplier selling individual dice.
Ever since discovering them, I have covetted their dice. A lot of dice, and bought a fair few.
My last order was in time for my birthday.
It was soured a little by them sending out a coupon for money off a couple of hours after I put in my order. And I know it’s bad timing, but it has soured me on making spontaneous purchases, and I feel that a little acknowledgement - like not sending a ‘buy, buy buy’ e-mail the moment I’ve placed a significant order, or adding a ‘money off your next purchase’ coupon, or a random offering from the big vault of seconds dice would have gone A LONG WAY towards making me feel like a valued customer.
Then the order arrived, and one of the sets had two percentile dice instead of 1d10/1d%.
No big deal, that sort of thing happens. So I contacted customer service.
They wanted a picture of the complete order (WTF) AND the packaging (most of which was in the bin, and I did not fish it out again.)
Then they apparently studied the image, confirmed that those were indeed two of the same dice and none of the missing one, and sent me the missing die, with instructions on how to return the leftover percentile die.
(I’m at a point where going out to post things isn’t a major imposition, but still.)
So I have my complete set, but the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth, and I have been looking at other sources for dice, because I am likely to want a few more in the future.
One source is Amazon, and while I don’t want to make Amazon my main shopping location, there are some things I can only get from Amazon, and I buy them in bulk from time to time, and if you buy x amount of things you qualify for free shipping, so throwing in a dice set for £5 instead of paying £5 shipping seems like a reasonable action.
In this case, I paid £10 for a set of six glittery dice sets.
Four are lovely, one is ok, and one was dull and I don’t think I’ll use it much.
Plus it had two percentile dice and no d10. (Those are the same shape after all, easy mistake to make.)
So I went to Amazon. The chatbot was not able to parse my complaint correctly (and it was not straightforward to even GET to the chatbot). It then said it would connect me to a human.
I have my doubts. Responses now acquired a noticable lag, but still not a lot of comprehension, and the responses I got were very, very generic. 'There was a problem with your order' generic.
Amazon's policy was to offer me a refund on my card OR a gift certificate; stating I don't have to return the item.
Since those were my only options, I opted for a refund. I now have five dice sets and seven individual dice, and I've come out ahead this time, but much as I can appreciate free loot, it didn't actually solve the problem. If this had been one of the sets I wanted, I would be disappointed. As it happens, I didn't like those dice anyway, so I can shrug, but satisfactory it was not.
I definitely need to find more opportunities to play DnD.
First was a major haul from an online dice company that makes stunning dice and which seems to be the only UK supplier selling individual dice.
Ever since discovering them, I have covetted their dice. A lot of dice, and bought a fair few.
My last order was in time for my birthday.
It was soured a little by them sending out a coupon for money off a couple of hours after I put in my order. And I know it’s bad timing, but it has soured me on making spontaneous purchases, and I feel that a little acknowledgement - like not sending a ‘buy, buy buy’ e-mail the moment I’ve placed a significant order, or adding a ‘money off your next purchase’ coupon, or a random offering from the big vault of seconds dice would have gone A LONG WAY towards making me feel like a valued customer.
Then the order arrived, and one of the sets had two percentile dice instead of 1d10/1d%.
No big deal, that sort of thing happens. So I contacted customer service.
They wanted a picture of the complete order (WTF) AND the packaging (most of which was in the bin, and I did not fish it out again.)
Then they apparently studied the image, confirmed that those were indeed two of the same dice and none of the missing one, and sent me the missing die, with instructions on how to return the leftover percentile die.
(I’m at a point where going out to post things isn’t a major imposition, but still.)
So I have my complete set, but the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth, and I have been looking at other sources for dice, because I am likely to want a few more in the future.
One source is Amazon, and while I don’t want to make Amazon my main shopping location, there are some things I can only get from Amazon, and I buy them in bulk from time to time, and if you buy x amount of things you qualify for free shipping, so throwing in a dice set for £5 instead of paying £5 shipping seems like a reasonable action.
In this case, I paid £10 for a set of six glittery dice sets.
Four are lovely, one is ok, and one was dull and I don’t think I’ll use it much.
Plus it had two percentile dice and no d10. (Those are the same shape after all, easy mistake to make.)
So I went to Amazon. The chatbot was not able to parse my complaint correctly (and it was not straightforward to even GET to the chatbot). It then said it would connect me to a human.
I have my doubts. Responses now acquired a noticable lag, but still not a lot of comprehension, and the responses I got were very, very generic. 'There was a problem with your order' generic.
Amazon's policy was to offer me a refund on my card OR a gift certificate; stating I don't have to return the item.
Since those were my only options, I opted for a refund. I now have five dice sets and seven individual dice, and I've come out ahead this time, but much as I can appreciate free loot, it didn't actually solve the problem. If this had been one of the sets I wanted, I would be disappointed. As it happens, I didn't like those dice anyway, so I can shrug, but satisfactory it was not.
I definitely need to find more opportunities to play DnD.
