Memorable moments at onthetop.com and Alternatives 2000

Cat problems

As many of you know we are cat people here at onthetop.com.
Even so, we had to have a "talk" with our cat Franky. The conversation went something like this...
"We know you are only trying to help but we didn't hire you to answer the phones. You don't have the people skills and you can't type in orders yet I'll give you the fact that you know how to handle a mouse. So until a cat calls and wants to place an order, you'll just have to keep your paws off the phones!" Meow. "So you're telling me that you were only trying to make the phone purr, but that's just the dial tone. Besides you don't know the phone number to the pet store or where we keep our credit cards.

Interesting Customer Issues

We received a letter from a customer that has difficulties with English. Enclosed with the letter was a check for exactly $40.00. Not just any check but a "Temporary Check". The check was the type you get when opening an account or if you run out of checks and they print up a few encoded with your account information only. These checks have no personal information written on them, no name, no phone, no address etc. The letter was hand written and only contained one short sentence. "I want hair wig." The letter didn't have a name, phone, address, shopping cart number and it didn't even include which brand, style or color she wanted. We waited months without cashing the check to see if someone would call or something. We finally shredded the check because there was nothing we could do with to help the person.

Delivery problems

After having difficulties with the postal service in her area a customer told us,
“I chased down my mailman screaming 'Give me my hair!'”

UPS's policy is Delivery Signatures are left up to the discretion of the driver. We have reason to question that wisdom because UPS tracking stated they had left the package…
“Beside the house” It was pouring rain that day.
“Under the porch”
“In the bushes”
“Left in carport” The customer didn’t have a carport.
“Leaning against the garbage can” Good thing it wasn’t trash pickup day.
“Leaning against mailbox” The mailbox was a few feet from the street, the customer’s driveway is about a block and a half long and couldn’t even be seen from the house! Hum, UPS is still using trucks aren’t they?
“Left with daughter” after which the daughter replied “Oh yeah mom, a package came for you about 2 weeks ago, you didn’t get it?”
Our favorite and it’s happened more than once, UPS rerouted the package to a different destination because they stated
“The recipient didn’t live at the given address, they lived in a different state.” To which we asked “So, how long have you known her?”
And a variation on the previous one...
"The recipient moved."The lady is going through chemotherapy, has no hair, is house-bound without her hair and was definitely at the listed address at the "attempted delivery time", no truck even came by that day. When we were through, UPS not only reimbursed for the first shipping charge but delivered it Saturday by 10am at no charge. Normally the Saturday shipping charge would have been over $75. Since UPS has zero-tolerance for drivers intentionally not delivering packages, the careless driver will likely go from "flipping boxes" to "flipping burgers"!

Infrequently Asked Questions

A customer traveled from Virginia to our location in California, and purchased a very expensive 36-inch long blonde Human Hair wig. After her appointment, she and her husband stayed over at a local motel. The next day, she called our salon and told us:
“I had an embarrassing problem this morning. Could Toni cut about 6 inches off of the bottom of my wig?”
“6 inches! You realize you would be having us cut several hundred dollars from it’s value...are you sure?”
“Oh yes, I’m sure.”
“What happened?”
“Umm, well I went into the bathroom and forgot to sweep the wig to one side before I sat down…”
After we all got our "Eews!" and "Yucks!" out of our systems, Toni shortened the wig to avert future disasters.

We've heard this one more than once...“Can I exchange this wig with you, because I am tired of dealing with that other company?”

Helping a curious customer can lead to answers like this... “Yes, I do believe that merkins are made with human hair, it's texturized scalp hair for a natural look and to answer your next question... Spirit Gum.” (For those that don't know, a "merkin" is a pubic hairpiece.)

This one raised a few eyebrows!
“Do you have any wigs with real human skin caps?”
We replied “No?”
Our webmaster came up with a different response.
“Would you like that with fava beans and a nice Chianti?”
In fairness, it wasn’t until much later that we realized the person was really looking for a wig with benefits of a latex skin cap. The wording of the question threw us off track.

“Do you sell wigs?” Uh, let me check today's orders. Yep, still do!

“What hours are your website open?” Uh, all of them?

“Can I buy a wig in a color that it is not available in?” You did say "not available" right?

“Can I buy a wig that has been discontinued?” I guess we are about to find out.

“Can you send me a catalog with all of the wigs you sell?” I suppose it isn't obvious but "the" catalog would actually be something like 30 catalogs and would be something like 2 inches thick! It would also be out of date the day it was sent. This is why it is only available on the Internet.

“I realize I gave you a false email address and telephone number but why didn't you let me know there was a problem with my order?” Well, the letter came back undeliverable.

“How many wigs do I have to order to get a discount?” One. Actually, the next discount level, depending on the brand, is at quantity 6 or 12 of the same brand. We're not trying to be difficult but most people don't want to purchase that many at one time.

“I wanted to wait on the order I recently placed so I did a charge-back. Is that a problem?” Yes! You didn't let us know you wanted to cancel your order and there is a $30 fee imposed on us for each charge-back. If you had let us know, we could have avoided the fee. Unfortunately you will have to repay us for that.

“The wig I received doesn't look like the one on my monitor, what do I do?” Buy 2 styrofoam heads or a second monitor. But the heads would be much cheaper.

"The reason I am calling is I would like to place an order with your company but I am uncomfortable placing my order on-line." No problem we understand some people are worried about Internet security so we can do it over the phone. "I have learned not to trust companies that sell things on-line." Oh, well how did you hear about us? "From the Internet." No kidding?!

"I have been calling for hours trying to reach you and all I get is your machine telling me to call back during business hours! Why doesn't someone answer the phone there?" Because you called outside business hours I suppose. "Well then, is there a phone number I can call outside business hours to speak to someone?" Well, yes. But I believe all of the other numbers you could call would actually be wrong numbers. "What if I send you an email? Will I get a answer?" Yes, but we only answer emails during business hours. We understand your frustration in wanting immediate contact but we simply cannot be available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. This is why we have business hours. Is there something I can do for you? "I hope so, I submitted my order last night and I wanted to know if you had shipped it yet?" No, we could not have shipped it yet. "Why not?"  We just opened. "When will it ship?" I can't tell you just yet the supplier doesn't open for another hour. I can call them at that time and make sure they have what your ordered in-stock. I can call you back then and let you know. Then we can run your credit card and get the product on it's way to us. When we receive it we will verify the item matches your order and then ship it to you that day. You sound like you are in a hurry, we can have the item rush shipped to us but that cost extra and we can have it sent U.S.P.S. Express 2 Day or UPS Next Day Air. Would you like us to do that for you? "No I'm not in a rush."

First-Time Internet Users

Everyone has to start somewhere, and we certainly welcome every visitor to our site. We sometimes forget that occasionally people are on the Internet that have never touched a computer before. This makes us think “Exactly how did you find our site?”

“… You can’t see the rest of the picture? What happens when you scroll down the page?”
“Scroll, what does that do?”

“… Click Next? Next what?”

“… Add to Cart? Oh I see!”

“… Would you like me to walk you through placing an order?”
“Sure that would be great.” A few minutes later…
“… Since you are walking me through this, can’t you just do it for me?”
“Oh? Ok, no problem…”

Employee Moments

While answering the phone at 6pm, “Good morning, Alternatives 2000”. You'd be surprised how often this happens.

“What is the 2 letter abbreviation for Mississippi? Arizona? Maine?”
“Didn't Toni type up a list of abbreviations for you, and don't you have it taped to the wall in front of you?”
“Yes. But it’s just easier to ask.”
“Easier for whom?”


A former employee changed a customer’s order without talking to the customer and shipped a totally different wig in a different color. When questioned about why, she stated, “Well, it was the only wig left in the box we got from the supplier, so I changed the customer's order to that one.” The supplier had sent the wrong wig and this employee actually changed the customer's order and sent her the wig that was shipped to us in error. Thus a former employee.

Same employee decided that the address a customer had given was wrong and promptly changed it to the location where the customer used to live. When questioned as to why she changed it, she replied “Well, nobody told me she moved!”. When told that having the new address on the order was in-fact telling her, she replied, “Good point.”

Hard to give up a bad thing.
Hair integration wigs and partial hairpieces are some of the most difficult to color match to a person’s own hair, because most people have different colors of hair on different parts of their head. Well, it is just about impossible to have a factory match the transitions across the integration or hairpiece without the person being present. So, after years of dealing with all the trouble, one last go was made of it. Over the next 2 months we got 75% of them back and ultimately decided that we should no longer attempt to make them generally available. Blondes and reds are particularly difficult to match, so that's why the only partial pieces you're likely to find on our site are in dark colors only.

Website Moments

Hosting a website involves countless details. In the early days (pre 1998), our former webmaster only knew how to write static html webpages. This made it very cumbersome to have a shopping cart system, and also very hard to keep track of the growing number of web pages needed to create the site.

Newer methods came along and our new and current webmaster decided we would benefit greatly from a database driven website. (Mid 1999) He completely redesigned a new website and made arrangements to get the new site up and tested prior to the switch over. Then, at the last moment, our domain name would simply be switched to the new server and Ta Da, new website.

OK, so everything is all set, new site is fully tested and the only thing to do is switch the domain so it pointed to the new server and new site. Our hosting provider was called and was told we were ready to complete the switch to the new server. Apparently the task was handed off to someone at the other end that didn’t know what was going on. After a few minutes, presto, no website at all! A panic call was made to the person who actually made the switch. They stated “When I went to make the switch, I noticed a bunch of files on the new site. I wanted to make sure you had a clean start so I deleted all of that stuff off the server.” Well, when the blue cloud of profanity died down, the entire website (over 10MB of files then, over 200MB now!) was uploaded over a 21Kbps modem connection. Remember the days of dropped connections, connections barely working etc.? It took almost all day to complete the upload.

After the above problems, we received a letter from the hosting company. Thinking it might be an apology we quickly opened it to find a letter stating that beginning the next month our $300/yr plan was going to have additional charges due to the heavy usage our site puts on their server. How much of a usage surcharge? Over $5,000/yr at current usage and if our usage doubled it would be $10,000/year etc.(!)

Within 1 week we found a new hosting company that had a free first month “trial” and unlimited usage for about $400/yr. Great, we set everything up and switched. Right away there were speed issues and the server would freeze about once an hour. They installed new, faster servers that week and not much changed except while it was running it was faster. They installed even faster servers the next week same result. We were told that we would just have to cut back on our traffic. Uh, right...(Sometimes ya just wanna reach through the phone and slap that person to see if they are awake.)

On to the next hosting company: We switched over and for several days things were great. The new hosting company was also hosting major government sites and some of NASA’s contractor’s sites. Great! But three days after we went on-line with them, a drunk driver crashed into their building and destroyed the main power source to the hosting company’s building. It took contractors and the power company nearly a week to get things going again.

It was at that moment that the decision was made that as soon as it becomes practical to have our own server hosted in-house, we would be much better off. A few months later, we did and never looked back. (This allaboutwigs website was created at the same time. The switch is discussed in the What's New 1999.)

Oh, and the company that had the free trial month, they sent us a bill for $400. They claimed that “trial” meant that the first month was free but that we still owed for the remaining 11 months. Uh, where did you learn English? Trial in the dictionary has 2 definitions that apply to this situation.
1. The act of testing something to find out about it.
2. An annoying, frustrating or catastrophic event.
Looks like we mistakenly thought they meant the first definition when they obviously meant the second.

Supplier Moments

I'm calling from onthetop.com to find out if you received our fax.
No but we did get one that we don't know who it was from.
Does it have a cover sheet? Our company name should be on it.
Oh yeah, here it is. We got it!

Thank you for calling. Your call will be answered in the order received.
Really? I am only calling you once. Don't you mean "We answer calls in the order received."?

I'm calling from onthetop.com. We just received a wig that is labeled as a #4 but it looks too dark, more like a #2.
Yes, we are out of the #4 color so we are using the #2s. We are relabeling them so they will be correct for your order.
What do you say to that logic? Sometimes ya really have to wonder about the qualifications certain companies have when hiring.

Hello, I am calling from onthetop.com. Our order is missing several items. They aren't shown as back-ordered, they are not even on the order.
Yes, we were out of stock on those so we removed them from your order.
Why didn't you tell us at the time we placed the order?
Well, it causes fewer problems that way.
In what way, I'm talking to you now about it aren't I?

After chatting with a sales rep they actually stated...
... I don't know if I can handle all the changes here.
Why, what is doing on?
We just switched from DOS to Windows on all our computers.
Uh, didn't Windows come out almost 20 years ago? Maybe you should be just a little more open to change!

This was a frightening conversation with more than one suppler...
Why are you requiring Internet Resellers to only post your Suggested Internet Price? We can sell far more wigs at a cheaper price. We make more money, you sell more wigs as well and the customer is getting a cheaper price. What is the problem with that?
The salons are complaining that Internet Resellers are under cutting their prices so they are losing customers.
We can understand that, but you realize that there is a tremendous amount of competition between Internet Resellers?
We understand that, but that is not our problem.
How do you figure that it is not your problem? How many new Internet Resellers do you sell to now verses what you did in say 2004?
We have many times more than in 2004 surely more than 6 times more.
Let me get this straight. You had quite a few Internet Resellers selling your products in 2004. The salons were only complaining a little then. Now you allowed 6 times as many new Internet Resellers to compete against the salons and each other and your solution to the whole problem is to demand Internet Resellers raise their prices. What kind of sense does that make?
It makes perfect sense what do you mean?
How come you kept allowing more and more companies sell your products on the Internet?
We want to sell more wigs.
Wait. You realize there are only so many people that are going buy wigs in a given year. That number may go up or down but the wig market overall is not unlimited. So if consumers are only buying your wigs from companies that buy from you, why did you allow so many new Internet Resellers?
We want to sell more wigs.
Well, this is not getting across to you. Would you allow more than one salon to sell your wigs in a given town?
No because they would be competing against each other for the same customers.
Isn't that what is happening with Internet Resellers?
No because Internet Resellers sell wigs all over the world not just in one town.
So let see,... In 2004 how many Internet Resellers were selling world wide?
Most of them if not all of them.
So at that time you had the global Internet market covered by the Internet Resellers that offered your brand of wigs. Like the salon on a small town, Internet Resellers had the market covered. So what do you think would happen if you allowed more Internet Resellers in a market that is already covered?
We would sell more wigs just like we planned!
Really? Ok, what if you wanted to sell more wigs in a particular town and a salon was already there selling your wigs. How would you go about selling more wigs in that town?
Short of creating new wigs we couldn't sell more in that town if the salon was doing their best to sell them.
Why not?
Because there aren't enough people to buy them.
Ok so you understand the idea. Salons selling locally to a limited market are like a bunch of Internet Resellers selling to a limited global market.
But it's not the same. Because if there is a town that we don't have a salon in we want to sell wigs to those potential customers as well.
But we already sell to that market as an Internet Reseller. It is true there is no salon there and a portion of that market is not covered. But we do sell there already.
You don't have that market covered. You are located in Sutter, California and lets say we don't have a salon in a "small town" in Florida. We want to sell our wigs there. So we need an Internet Reseller located there.
I see the problem here. Didn't you guy tell us a while back that you just switched to Windows on your computers?
We did.
Well, maybe you need a newer version.
Which version should we be running?
Oh, I'm not talking about a newer version of Windows. I'm talking about a newer version of your employees that understand the Internet more than browsing and using email.

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