JT Fan Club Woes / A Lesson in Email Support
I've been meaning to post my frustrations with the fan club for awhile, and now I finally have time to post!
First, I posted awhile back that I had finally used the $30 discount code to purchase the Future Sex/Love Show tour shirt and the shot glass. When I finally received my package, I was disappointed because:
a) the shot glass wasn't included, and I hadn't been notified of any back order status, and
b) the tour shirt didn't even include San Jose or Sacramento on the back! What's the point of a tour shirt if all the locations aren't on it, you know?
So I sent an email to FanFire with the following:
Hi, I have two questions and wasn't sure which subject is most appropriate.
First, I just received my order shipment, but it did not include the shot glass that I ordered. I was not informed that this item was place on back order, nor did the item appear in the invoice that arrived with the shipment. However, it's clearly listed in my order confirmation. Could you please inform me what has happened to the shotglass?
Second, I did receive the tour t-shirt that I ordered. However, I'm disappointed to see that despite item description saying that all 2007 tour dates were listed on the shirt, it appears that neither the Sacramento or San Jose dates are on the shirt. Is there a shirt that does contain these dates on it, and if so, is it possible for me to exchange this shirt for it (or at least get some sort of discount)?
Now, keep in mind that I do email support for work, so I have high expectations for any responses I get via email. I get the following reply:
Thank you for your email. We regret that the item you requested
JTI40411 Justin Timberlake Love Show Shot Glass
is not available at this time. We will ship your merchandise out as soon as we receive more in stock. We expect another shipment from the manufacturer within next 3-4 weeks. We value your business and thank you for your patience.
The item, Justin Timberlake Future Sex Love Show Tour Tee, "includes the 2007 tour stops on back" as stated under description, however, not all the dates are included.
If you have any further questions, please contact us at orderhelp@FanFire.com or one of the following numbers: 1-800-767-7160 or 1-916-350-2016. Our customer service representatives are available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Please be sure to include a copy of this email with any
reply.
Now, I understand that this is FanFire support and that the JT fan club is one of their clients, so they may not be best able to handle specific inquiries about products, but I was upset because this email was not helpful. While she did address both questions and inform me on the status of the shot glass, the part about the tour tee pretty much reiterated what I said and nothing more. "Includes the 2007 tour stops on back" but not all the dates are included? That's just contradictory and frustrating!
So of course, I sent a follow-up email to get answers to the specific questions that I had previously asked:
Thanks for your reply. It's unfortunate that not all dates are not included in the tour shirt, and I'd recommend making this more visible on the site.
Also, could you tell me which shirts *do* include San Jose or Sacramento on them? And is it possible to return or exchange items?
And the response:
Thank you for your email. The items can be returned with in 30 days, for an exchange or return. Unfortunately, we are not given more item description thane what's available on the site. Please email me back with the SKU number for the items you are interested in and I will submit a request for more information, such as specific Tour Date. Looking forward to your reply.
I'm happy to know that I can return the item, but I am concerned that there would be issues in returning my shirt and getting the amount refunded to my JT discount code. I have yet to do it, but we'll wait and see.
Until then, does anyone know if any of the merchandise on the website actually contains Sacramento or San Jose on it?
Second, I tried to purchase tickets yesterday for the San Jose show during the 9-10am exclusive fan club presale, but when I entered my code at 9am on the dot, I received the message: "We're sorry, there are no more tickets available for this promotion."
After several attempts, I consistently got the same message, which clearly indicated to me that something was not correctly working with the passcode. There's no way for there to be no more tickets for the fan club promotion when I started at 9am on the dot, right?
I first emailed Ticketmaster per the ticketing FAQ on the site, and I received this response:
Thank you for contacting us. After reviewing the information, we show that the pass code is work and you may try to purchase tickets. Please keep in mind that if you get a message stating that there is no offers left, that means that there is no more tickets available for the pre-sale. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused.
First thing I noticed was the poor grammar. Then I realized that according to Ticketmaster, the passcode *should* be working, and I still didn't believe that there were no more tickets available for the pre-sale. At this point, my assumption was that the fan club failed to reset my ticket count from the previous tour, so I sent an email to FanFire and received this response:
Thank you for your email. Your Pre-sale Access Code, **********, is still good for the purchase of TWO more tickets. Please log into your Fan Club account to make any additional purchases.
Go figure that after I receive this email, my boyfriend (who had been helping me try to get tickets since I was busy at work) was finally able to pull up 2 tickets using my passcode, but he was clearly receiving the same error message as I had been before! By this point it was already 1pm, and the tickets originally went on sale at 9am. And on top of that, he was only able to pull up seats in section 213 -- which, IMO, clearly defeats the purpose of joining the fan club to get good seats. But ... whatever.
In the end, I'm just happy that I was able to get tickets at all. I honestly think that they reset my passcode *after* I had emailed them about it, and then support just nonchalantly responded as if it should have been working all along. I do have to email them back though and inquire about the fact that the JT site says the passcode should be valid for 4 tickets now instead of 2. *sigh*
So yeah, in the end, I feel like I've had nothing but a frustrating experience with fan club thus far. I know I'm not the only one either. Just venting.
First, I posted awhile back that I had finally used the $30 discount code to purchase the Future Sex/Love Show tour shirt and the shot glass. When I finally received my package, I was disappointed because:
a) the shot glass wasn't included, and I hadn't been notified of any back order status, and
b) the tour shirt didn't even include San Jose or Sacramento on the back! What's the point of a tour shirt if all the locations aren't on it, you know?
So I sent an email to FanFire with the following:
Hi, I have two questions and wasn't sure which subject is most appropriate.
First, I just received my order shipment, but it did not include the shot glass that I ordered. I was not informed that this item was place on back order, nor did the item appear in the invoice that arrived with the shipment. However, it's clearly listed in my order confirmation. Could you please inform me what has happened to the shotglass?
Second, I did receive the tour t-shirt that I ordered. However, I'm disappointed to see that despite item description saying that all 2007 tour dates were listed on the shirt, it appears that neither the Sacramento or San Jose dates are on the shirt. Is there a shirt that does contain these dates on it, and if so, is it possible for me to exchange this shirt for it (or at least get some sort of discount)?
Now, keep in mind that I do email support for work, so I have high expectations for any responses I get via email. I get the following reply:
Thank you for your email. We regret that the item you requested
JTI40411 Justin Timberlake Love Show Shot Glass
is not available at this time. We will ship your merchandise out as soon as we receive more in stock. We expect another shipment from the manufacturer within next 3-4 weeks. We value your business and thank you for your patience.
The item, Justin Timberlake Future Sex Love Show Tour Tee, "includes the 2007 tour stops on back" as stated under description, however, not all the dates are included.
If you have any further questions, please contact us at orderhelp@FanFire.com or one of the following numbers: 1-800-767-7160 or 1-916-350-2016. Our customer service representatives are available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Please be sure to include a copy of this email with any
reply.
Now, I understand that this is FanFire support and that the JT fan club is one of their clients, so they may not be best able to handle specific inquiries about products, but I was upset because this email was not helpful. While she did address both questions and inform me on the status of the shot glass, the part about the tour tee pretty much reiterated what I said and nothing more. "Includes the 2007 tour stops on back" but not all the dates are included? That's just contradictory and frustrating!
So of course, I sent a follow-up email to get answers to the specific questions that I had previously asked:
Thanks for your reply. It's unfortunate that not all dates are not included in the tour shirt, and I'd recommend making this more visible on the site.
Also, could you tell me which shirts *do* include San Jose or Sacramento on them? And is it possible to return or exchange items?
And the response:
Thank you for your email. The items can be returned with in 30 days, for an exchange or return. Unfortunately, we are not given more item description thane what's available on the site. Please email me back with the SKU number for the items you are interested in and I will submit a request for more information, such as specific Tour Date. Looking forward to your reply.
I'm happy to know that I can return the item, but I am concerned that there would be issues in returning my shirt and getting the amount refunded to my JT discount code. I have yet to do it, but we'll wait and see.
Until then, does anyone know if any of the merchandise on the website actually contains Sacramento or San Jose on it?
Second, I tried to purchase tickets yesterday for the San Jose show during the 9-10am exclusive fan club presale, but when I entered my code at 9am on the dot, I received the message: "We're sorry, there are no more tickets available for this promotion."
After several attempts, I consistently got the same message, which clearly indicated to me that something was not correctly working with the passcode. There's no way for there to be no more tickets for the fan club promotion when I started at 9am on the dot, right?
I first emailed Ticketmaster per the ticketing FAQ on the site, and I received this response:
Thank you for contacting us. After reviewing the information, we show that the pass code is work and you may try to purchase tickets. Please keep in mind that if you get a message stating that there is no offers left, that means that there is no more tickets available for the pre-sale. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused.
First thing I noticed was the poor grammar. Then I realized that according to Ticketmaster, the passcode *should* be working, and I still didn't believe that there were no more tickets available for the pre-sale. At this point, my assumption was that the fan club failed to reset my ticket count from the previous tour, so I sent an email to FanFire and received this response:
Thank you for your email. Your Pre-sale Access Code, **********, is still good for the purchase of TWO more tickets. Please log into your Fan Club account to make any additional purchases.
Go figure that after I receive this email, my boyfriend (who had been helping me try to get tickets since I was busy at work) was finally able to pull up 2 tickets using my passcode, but he was clearly receiving the same error message as I had been before! By this point it was already 1pm, and the tickets originally went on sale at 9am. And on top of that, he was only able to pull up seats in section 213 -- which, IMO, clearly defeats the purpose of joining the fan club to get good seats. But ... whatever.
In the end, I'm just happy that I was able to get tickets at all. I honestly think that they reset my passcode *after* I had emailed them about it, and then support just nonchalantly responded as if it should have been working all along. I do have to email them back though and inquire about the fact that the JT site says the passcode should be valid for 4 tickets now instead of 2. *sigh*
So yeah, in the end, I feel like I've had nothing but a frustrating experience with fan club thus far. I know I'm not the only one either. Just venting.