Summertime is coming to my house, and in the interest of keeping cool while we sleep without blowing a fortune on the AC, we decided to buy a ceiling fan.

I started at Google, which led me to a place called csnceilingfans.com - they have one of those faceted search systems where you specify features and are able to dial down very quickly to what you want. They also had a huge selection of fans, and good photos, good descriptions of the fans. We have an old house, with small rooms, so it had to be a smaller fan, that didn’t hang so low that the blades would cut our heads off. After a while I found the perfect fan - their catalog and search tools are really top-notch. After doing a sanity check on prices at a couple of other sites, and checking what other people had said about the fan and this company, I decided to pull the trigger.

I did the credit card thing, and got their confirmation email. The email said it would ship between the 9th and 11th of June — no big deal for me, since I would wait  until the weekend to install.

Then it all fell apart. On the 10th, I sent an email to customer service asking if it was shipped. I got a prompt response reminding me it would ship no later than the next day, and that they would send an email when it went out. Next day, no email. The next day (12th - one day late by their schedule) I sent another email, and was assured again by customer service that it would ship, and I’d get a notice when it shipped. No email.

The next day, no email, and I decide to call. I’m the customer that companies love - I pretty much never call, but this time, I was really annoyed - they had broken their word to me three times now, and were starting to seem shady. I made sure they had not charged my card, and then I called. The CS lady confirmed that it hadn’t shipped yet, and put me on hold to check with the warehouse. When she got back, I was told the warehouse was closed, and would not ship today. I asked for expedited shipping when they got around to it, so I could start sleeping cooler at night. She declined. When I asked for a manager, I was told they are too busy with another customer. I asked that they cancel my order, and  she told me they’d send an email confirming. Two days later no email, another call, and a promise that I’d get an email.

Email came, and I went to the next shipper on Google, ordered a fan, and got a UPS shipping notice within an hour.This was the exact experience I expected when I started csnceilingfans.com, and NEVER got. Unlike a lot of people, I am an undemanding customer, but in this case my limits were more than exceeded.

Lesson here: csnceilingfans.com - if you make a statement to a customer, follow through. The uncertain feeling I got when they failed to do what they promised to do 4 times over made me unsure of them as a vendor. This applies to everyone - your software can be top-notch, but if your follow-through fails you, then you lose the customer. If I buy a fan again, I’ll research it on csnfans site, but you can be certain I’ll buy from 1800lighting.com instead.