A customer in Vietnam places an order two months before February 14th for a jewellery setearrings and matching necklaceas a Valentine's gift for his wife from an e-retailer based in France. The total cost with shipping is USD 275. He pays using his credit card. He is told that his order should arrive in two weeks. He does not receive any notification regarding his order. After three and half weeks the customer has not received the jewellery set and contacts customer service. The e-retailer apologizes and is unable to determine where his order is, but assures the customer the gift will arrive within a week. At the end of the week the customer's order arrives, but there is no paperwork with an order or product number and the jewellery set is not what he ordered. He goes online to determine what he needs to do to return the order. He finds out that for orders under USD 300 he has to pay for shipping. He is also supposed to fill in an online form to submit with his return, but he still does not have an order number. He calls customer service to complain about the wait for his order and how his order is incorrect and to explain that he has no order number. The customer service representative sympathizes, but he is told that as an international customer he is responsible for shipping costs. After being placed on hold for twenty minutes, the customer finally receives his order number. The customer sends the product back to the address as stipulated on the web site.

a. Describe an improvement that the e-retailer should make to its ordering service.

b. How should the e-retailer treat this return?

c. If the e-retailer had a customer service priority, list two practices that could be implemented to prevent this customer's product return experience.