The sales rep made the call. The customer picked up, heard who it was, and yelled at the rep for the audacity of calling.
That sale went to a competitor. One that actually manufactures its own products.
I was there that afternoon as the freelancer hired for SEO and analytics. I watched the whole thing happen. It didn’t start with the phone call. It started with the about page.
How It Started
The company private labeled its products. That’s common and completely fine.
However, the about page said otherwise. It was written by the AI tool built into their store platform, Sidekick on Shopify. And it read like they made everything themselves. Nobody had checked it against how the business actually works.
Then a customer called and asked where their production facility was.
The Call Nobody Could Win
Customer service told the truth: there wasn’t one.
The customer felt lied to. From where they sat, the website had told them one thing and the person on the phone had told them another.
The owner overheard and had sales call the “lead” back to save the order. I get the instinct. Nobody wants to lose a customer over one phone call. It just couldn’t work.
Why The Callback Couldn’t Fix It
The problem wasn’t the customer. It was the about page.
No matter what the rep said, the website had already made a claim the company couldn’t stand behind. Calling back didn’t fix that. It reminded the customer of it.
Customer service did the right thing. The owner wanted to keep a customer. Nobody lied on purpose. But nobody checked either.
Here’s What It Should Say
Private label isn’t the problem. Copy that claims otherwise is.
An honest about page can still sell. Something like: “We design our products and work with trusted manufacturers to build them to our specs.”
That’s true, it sounds good, and customer service can say it on the phone without walking anything back.
What I Changed
Inside the AI tool’s store details, I explicitly added that they are not a manufacturer. After that, it stopped writing them that way.
Sometimes we say what we are, but we need to make sure we say what we are not so it doesn’t go rogue.
More on keeping sales, customer service, and the website on the same page in Sales, Customer Service, And The Website: Working From the Same Playbook.