No one likes bad customer service. Neither does anyone fancy failed customer orders.

Case in point: Two online flower delivery services in Singapore were unable to keep up with fulfilling orders over Valentine's Day, and naturally, faced the ire of irate customers. (Here and here.)

However, this method of turning to social media to uphold consumers' rights has been a thing for some time in Singapore.

Is it effective? When does it work?

It appears the ecosystem of home-based business in Singapore relies quite a bit on such feedback mechanisms to function properly.

Home-based businesses rely on word-of-mouth

J-Patissier is a bakery that specialises in cupcakes and swiss rolls with custom designs.

Their steady stream of requests and customers is due to the eye-catching cakes it makes that cater to children.

One of their most-requested orders is the 30-piece Nutella Blossoms cupcakes. They cost S$1 each with a minimum order of 30 pieces.

The complaints

However, things didn't go so pretty for one of the customers.

The Nutella Blossoms that she ordered for a party was never delivered at noon, on Feb. 11, despite having the order confirmed and paid for.

According to a Facebook post by the dissatisfied customer, she had tried reaching out to the bakery, but did not receive a response at all.

She ended up having to find alternatives for the party that she was planning.

-NEVER order your cakes from J Patissier-

The baker went MIA on the day of collection!

I made an order of 30pcs nutella blossoms (with full payment made) on Monday for the collection at 12noon on Saturday. On the day of collection, the baker did not reply any messages or answer all of our calls! We have to think of other alternatives to replace them for the party.

I hope that no one has to go through this frustrating situation like me today.

Below is the FB Page & Instagram!

(Read their reviews! I am not the only victim!)

Please share this post to warn the people around you!

Her post gained some traction online and the comments revealed that this probably was not a one-off non-delivery from the bakery.

A search on Facebook revealed that there had been another incident involving the same bakery.

Bakery responds

A bit more digging on Facebook revealed that the same bakery had posted a lengthy apology on their official Facebook page before in response to negative feedback.

According to the post, the bakery looked to have made amends, as the baker personally apologised and was remorseful, and said that the incident was a lesson learnt.

Hello everyone, I would like to publicly apologize to Amy and her daughter Chloe. For all of you who have been sharing the post, or have seen the post. You will have know the story about us for failing to deliver the cakes for her daughter's 8th birthday celebration in school. And we would hereby like to say sorry to the both of them. We have learnt the lesson regarding this issue and would just like to clarify this issue and assure everyone that it will not happen again. However I am still thankful to have seek her forgiveness and I do hope everyone will forgive us for this mistake as well. Thank you for the time taken to read this:) I hope this really clears the air about the situation. I know my mistakes and I will change for the better too. And I will still try my best to make all these lovely cakes for all your special occasions. I have almost forgot, why I started this. It was to bring smiles to people because I love to bake. And to see people love what I did for their special day makes me happy. However after yesterday's incident I realize that's not what J Patissier was about. Thank you Amy for the forgiveness and also making me think back about why I started this. This is a lesson truly learnt. And will be a reminder to me always.

Thank you,

Janine

Many well-wishers responded and offered encouraging words to move on.

The customer who was initially angry was assured that the baker had turned over a new leaf.

We got Chloe cakes with tsum tsum toppers and she was delighted. I take comfort in realizing how understanding and strong my daughter is from this whole MIA-cake incident. I am also comforted that Janine the baker faced her mistake and am happy to accept her sincere apology . (J, make good your promise to learn from your mistake, ok?) P.S also, many thanks to my friends who shared my initial anger and frustration - Chloe is blessed to have so many aunties and uncles who dote on her!

But there were others who weren't buying the apology.

And they were right.

Three months after this incident, J-Patissier had apparently failed to deliver again.

In short, the customer ordered a birthday Swiss Roll for collection in October.

But on the day itself, the bakery said that the order would arrive late, but it was eventually not delivered.

According to the customer, the baker even told her that she was unable to refund her because she could not find the bank token.

But after the irate customer took to social media, she was refunded promptly just one-and-a-half-hours later.

Negative comments or posts left on J Patissier's page were then removed, the customer alleged.

More complaints

And problems continued to surface with the baker, even months later.

Most recently on June 12, 2017, J Patissier was the subject of a complaint again by another irate customer:

When the party mood is ruined because of a irresponsible and dishonest seller. I ordered the nutella blossoms for my son's birthday party. Even sent a confirmation msg to her to confirm my pick up time one day prior to collection. Guess what? When we arrived at her void deck and spam called her numerous times, no reply or callback. Hours later, seller replied saying she OVERSLEPT. What kind of excuse is this? No other alternatives were offered to me, said full refund will be made but till now still not done. No reply from her when I message her for updates. We commented on her facebook and instagram page, our comments were deleted and disallowed from commenting. Please beware of this seller! DO NOT ORDER FROM HER!

Please help me to share.. apparently I am not the only victim.

Update: She has refunded me but blocked me on her instagram as I commented on her post. Her actions really speaks for everything...

According to the post, the complainant had ordered the Nutella Blossoms from the home baker, who claimed she overslept and failed to deliver.

Offering no alternatives, she said that she would refund Lee, but the refund was not made until one hour after the Facebook post was made, and numerous comments on J Patissier's social media pages.

Unsurprisingly, the negative comments were again allegedly deleted.

Pros and cons of home-based businesses

A check with the review section showed that the bakery has been receiving positive reviews from previous customers about the the cakes and prompt service.

Such a home-based business, like many others in Singapore, serve a role in the ecosystem of small businesses here, as they are able to tailor-make unique goods and services to cater to niches and stand apart from mass-produced mainstream entities.

However, this also highlights how home-based businesses operate on a somewhat different business logic than regular businesses that generally undertake greater financial and reputational risks.

And this has been highlighted before.

In April 2016, cafe owners raised their concerns that home-based bakeries were eating into their business while not bearing the same risks, even though they were profiting from mass sales.

The argument was that without the responsibility of being a registered business entity with a shopfront, many home-based business undertake fewer financial and reputational risks.

But as the above bakery example shows, customers with little or no recourse when goods and services do not meet expectations or fail to deliver can take matters into their own hands.

Here are totally unrelated but equally interesting articles:

The Caveman Review: Masks your face can eat

Here are 14 moving images of people crying because they’re so happy they just can’t

Related article:

Yes, it is perfectly legal to bake cakes in your HDB flat for sale

Top image adapted via and via

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