I heart Sleek

One of my biggest pet peeves in life is bad customer service. I'm sure we've all experienced inattentive or rude sales assistants in store, but for me, the kind that is REALLY annoying is bad customer service online. I'm talking about when you send an email regarding an online order or even just a general question to one of those 'contact us' address but then wait days, sometimes even weeks for a response, which, when it does arrive, quite often turns out to be unhelpful or rude. I don't see the point in having one of those "got a question? email us!" addresses if the company doesn't actually respond to the emails! Grrrr! Quite often, bad experiences like that really make me not want to bother with shopping online as I just don't think it's worth the hassle. At least if you go into a store and have a problem, you can deal with actual people rather than just a faceless email sender!

Anyway, I think as Brits, we're always quick to moan and complain about things but not so quick to show gratitude or praise someone for doing a good job, which is why I felt I should write this post.

Back in November, Sleek Makeup held a 50% off everything sale, which ended up being a bit of a nightmare as the huge amount of traffic on their site caused problems and meant that some orders weren't processed properly, resulting in a lot of unhappy customers who were hoping to take advantage of the bargains actually ending up with nothing at all. Fortunately, (as I mentioned in my last post) Sleek promised to honour all those people who had attempted to make an order but were unsuccessful, by sending them (at some point in the future) a 50% off voucher code. Although it did take a few months, Sleek have kept their promise and over the past few weeks they've been emailing out voucher codes to everyone who attempted to make an order during the sale, myself included.

I received mine about a week ago but didn't get around to using it until this Tuesday. I selected the items I wanted, went to the checkout page, entered the voucher code, all was fine, clicked 'continue', but then, shock horror, something went wrong; my basket got emptied and I had to start all over again. Annoying, but ok, no harm done. Unfortunately, when I went back to the checkout and re-entered the voucher code, it came up as 'voucher expired' - I assume because each code could only be used once, and technically, my code had already been used when I attempted to make the order the first time. So I sent an email explaining what had happened to both the general Sleek help address and also to Alice, a member of the Sleek Web Team, who had sent me the code in the first place. Within about an hour, Alice responded, saying that she had reset my code so that it could be used again. I tried again, but there was still a problem so I emailed her once more, and this time, she responded within minutes saying that it was definitely working now. And lo and behold, it was! Hurrah!

Anyway, I figured that, since a lot of people had recieved voucher codes, Sleek would be swamped with orders and I didn't expect to receive mine until some point next week. So I was very pleasantly surprised when the postman brought me a lovely parcel earlier today, just two days after I put my order in! I'm honestly so pleased with this whole transaction; Alice's quick response and the fact that she sorted out my voucher code with no messing about, plus the super fast delivery time, have left me really impressed! Maybe I'm making a bigger deal of this than is necessary; I think my expectations have been lowered due to bad experiences with other online stores, but I just think it highlights how much of a difference it makes to the overall shopping experience when the customer service is good. Other online retailers, take note! Thank you Sleek, you rock!

I'm super excited about my purchases, and will probably do an in-depth review once I get a new video camera (I'm getting a replacement for my broken one, whoopa!), but I thought I'd include some photos of what I bought, because everything is so new and pretty!

Fixx London individual lashes (with adhesive AND remover - which I think is a very good idea!), ONE Finishing Powder and Pan Tao Blush (to go with my Paraguaya palette)

Eye Drama Mascara in Blackout Waterproof, Mini High Shine Lipgloss in Sweet Sixteen (which was a free gift) and the double ended Contouring Brush (complete with a little black pouch - useful!)

Marvellous. I can't wait to use everything! I'm off out to a gig tonight so will definitely be trying out the mascara and possibly the eyelashes too.

Have you had any good/bad customer service experiences lately? And what are your thoughts on Sleek? Let me know!