There are times when our office gets an e-mail that it is hard for us to understand. Recently we got e-mails from two separate customers within minutes that left us scratching our heads.

In the first situation, the user had started the order process for a product and had completed everything but the payment. We asked if there had been in problem so we could help them complete the order. The answer indicated that the order was aborted because we did not provide shipping cost or time. A perfectly logical answer if the product was to be shipped. Below is the product description and Add to Cart button.

I hope you can all see it clearly states “This is only a download, you will have nothing shipped to you.” Since the product is a download, there was no information provided about shipping cost and time as they don’t apply. We try very hard to clearly label products and it is incredibly frustrating when what we feel is a clear description seems to be ignored.

Another user complained about the password we assigned. I’ve written about this in the past, but I want to describe this process again since it seems to be a common complaint.

When you create an account to purchase a product on any of our sites, you select your own username and password. Let me make it crystal clear, we do NOT assign a password for you. Unfortunately users will forget their own username or their own password. In those situations, we do provide a link that allows them to reset their password and have a new one e-mailed to the e-mail account on file. The password we assign is a secure password for your protection.

Once this new password is received, the user can login to their account. After they have logged in, they can change the password to anything they like. In other words, the only time you have use the password we assign is when you’ve asked us to reset the password and it only needs to be used the one time and you have the option to use whatever password you assign after that time.

When users complain about this, they make it sound like no other site on the Web does this. I can only guess the person has never used the reset password option on any other site because the process is very similar with almost any site I’ve used.

I ask each and every one of you to look for obvious answers that are right in front of you such as the complaint above about shipping information. I’ve also recommended over and over and over again that all of you get a copy of Roboform as it will remember all of your login information so that you will never have to worry about forgetting it again. Just think about the hassle you encounter every time you forget a login. One tool can make that go away! Plus you’ll actually use secure passwords so it isn’t so easy for someone to hack your accounts.