Yesterday I received a letter from the lovely people at my favourite website - I Want One Of Those.

I ordered a lot of my Christmas shopping from the site, as I have done for some years. This year, they did two big new things - they opened up the site to US residents and became a hot ticket there as well as in the UK; and they advertised on television for the first time.

Their ads were fun and drew the crowds - probably far more then they were expecting. I don’t believe they were ready for it. Normally, iWoot service is the best I’ve ever experienced. No sooner have you finished the order with a final click, than a courier’s tapping you on the shoulder with your delivery. This Christmas was not normal.

I was holding both my breath and the phone line on Christmas eve, worried how I was going to explain the absence of presents to my nephews. The courier arrived as I got through after a 44-minute wait on the phone line. I wouldn’t let the nice young man go until the courier had unpacked my entire order onto the drive and ticked each item off with me. Then I wished them both a happy Christmas. I had a great time and pretty much forgot the iWoot episode until yesterday. I got this in the post;

Dear Customer,

A few months ago I would not have imagined having to write this letter, but I do feel the need to do so now, I would like to apologise for what I regard to have been an unacceptable level of service over the recent Christmas season.

Over the past seven years IWOOT has built up a solid reputation for being utterly reliable, communicative and fast in all our dealings with customers, but last Christmas, we failed to maintain the consistent standards to which our customers have become accustomed. Whilst the vast majority of our customers will not have noticed any drop in service levels, for some the result was abysmal.

I will make no excuses, and detailing the reasons why your order went awry will be of little consolation to you either. We have spent years building up a high level of trust with our customers, and we’re devastated that at such an important time as Christmas we have in too many instances, undermined that trust.

It has always been our purpose that once one of our customers makes an order, then that order is delivered to their door in its entirety, extremely fast and with no hassle. So when that doesn’t happen, as may have been the case with your order this Christmas, we have failed, and for that we are all deeply sorry.

I quite understand that having let you down, you may want nothing more to do with us, and in your position I might well feel the same. I should like however to assure you that this failure was very much the exception and not the rule: the purpose of this letter is simply to stand up and apologise for having let you down, and to say how deeply sorry we are for any grief we have caused.

As you might expect, we are working extremely hard to ensure that for the future, IWOOT customer service is consistently exceptional and something we can all take pride in delivering. Initiatives, such as the hotline for our most loyal customers, will be made available later this year and I shall write to you again when these are to be launched.

With best wishes

Yours sincerely

Richard Wainright-Lee

Managing Director, I Want One of Those.com Limited.

Teaching and training in the area of leadership is what I do. To me, this shows strength in vulnerability, humility and real, authentic leadership. Things go wrong sometimes and it’s in those moments that leaders are either exposed or promoted.

Mr. Wainright-Lee, there should be more like you.