We’re already fond of Woot for consistently having the most entertaining ad copy around, but a reader has reported that when they recently screwed up a large number of Zune orders—and not even in a terrible way—they shipped free $100 accessory kits to everyone who was affected, then sent out a frank email that explained the situation and guaranteed a full refund to anyone who still wasn’t satisfied. They handled the situation quickly and in a way that will likely prevent many customers from complaining or feeling cheated. And best of all, they were up front about the snafu and treated their customers with respect.

According to the email, Woot miscounted their brown Zunes and realized this only as they were preparing their shipments. They substituted black models for brown:

…While many did not care about color, and some may perceive the black color to be a higher value (correct at least from Woot’s financial perspective), the dilemma was of course it wasn’t what you ordered. Unfortunately, we also had little time to act as we were at the fringe of shipment expectations already. The story does get better, however; we were able to persuade our marketing minds that this was a good opportunity for their budget to expand:

We have included a bonus: A Microsoft Zune Travel Pack has been shipped with your order

The Zune Travel Pack has 5 products including the Zune Premium Earphones, Dual Connect Remote, AC Charger, Sync cable, and a decent bag. These are new retail boxed and carry a Microsoft MSRP of $99.99. Information from Microsoft and links to street pricing are here: http://www.zune.net/en-us/accessories/zune/zunetravelpack.htm#

While your orders left our building only recently, they are on their way. I hope that those of you who are fans of the brown zune find our emergency solution to be acceptable-it was a rather expensive action. Due to logistics delay, there was no time available to make this an opt-in program (or everyone’s zunes would not ship until next week.) As things stand now, if this solution does not meet with your acceptance, we’re down to a last resort of issuing a call-tag to pick it back up (once it arrives) and issue you a full refund.

Nicely done, Woot! You seem both smarter and nicer than, say, the execs at EB Games. Please buy them.

(thanks to Phillip!)
(Photo: Salim Virji)

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