Shining a light on the online shopping after-sales experience - Susan Morrison

Like an anxious suitor, they wanted to know did I get the lights? How long did I wait for the lights? Could they improve the lights? How about the packaging? (Picture: Adobe)

A few weeks ago I went on-line and bought a new set of lights for the kitchen. The company may have been called Lightylightlights of Great Britain (it wasn’t. Names have been changed and all that) but I guessed the lights weren’t being made in some artisan workshop in Leeds or High Wycombe.

My lights were being shipped in from somewhere altogether more exotic. Just as well I ordered when I did. A few days later and they might have been caught up in a Trump Tarriff Tantrum, trapped aboard a container ship en route from Shanghai.

Trade wars not withstand-ing, they eventually turned up. And then the emails started. Lightylightlights of Great Britain fulsomely congratulated me upon my purchase and expressed the wish that my lights and I would have a long and happy life together.

But, like an anxious suitor, they wanted to know did I get the lights? How long did I wait for the lights? Could they improve the lights? How about the packaging? What other lights could they show me? Sell me?

Everything was fine, I said. I felt like I was settling down an anxious maiden aunt who had been startled by the backfire of an automobile.

The lights had been delivered by a courier. A very nice young man who actually said ‘have a nice day’.

The email arrived the minute he cleared the doorstep. My parcel had been delivered. Was I happy with the delivery? Would I be so kind as to fill in the little star rating, grading the efficiency, speed and attitude of the courier?Naturally, I did, and with all the top scores. The guys and gals who work on these delivery services are constantly monitored by time-and-efficiency bots at head office.

It's all just getting a little clingy. I only bought some lights. To be brutally frank, I probably won’t buy from them again, but that's because I only needed those particular lights.

Given the level of jaunty correspondence they’re sending, I’m seriously conc-erned about how to let them down gently after what was essentially a retail one-night stand. It’s not them, it's me.

The delivery service was also fine. He was a cheery chap and that was lovely, but I’m not about to start judging his attitude. To be honest, he could have had a face like a skelped kipper, but I’d still have been chuffed to see him.

My parcel was delivered to my doorstep. Trust me, I spent decades trundling out to ever more remote Royal Mail depots to collect parcels that mysteriously couldn’t be delivered despite the fact that there were at least four people in the house at the time.

Just leave us alone with our purchases and deliveries. This is management-level appraisal. Even when I was getting paid I worked assiduously to avoid that level of responsibility.

The electrician came last week to fit the lights. They’re too bright. I’ll need to send them back. I have no idea how Lightylightlights is going to take this. I may need to source a therapist.