I ordered a watch through Amazon (from Watch Grabber—which doesn’t deserve a link) over three weeks ago now, and I’m still dealing with them to get me the damn watch. If your ultimate goal is to piss off your customers as much as possible, here are some tips to get started:

1. Ship a watch with a huge, plainly visible scratch across its face.
2. Make the process of finding your phone number as difficult as possible, and definitely don’t include it on any email correspondence. Too easy to get in contact with you that way.
3. Take three or more days to reply to emails, or, you know, don’t.
4. Don’t include a return shipping label with the original item. Also, don’t include any other information that might be helpful either. That would only make people content (or even happy), and that would be terrible.
5. Wait at least a week after receiving the item to be exchanged to even begin to think about processing it. People just can’t handle being shipped the same watch twice within a month. Too many shipments. Swimming in watches. So, slow it down a bit. No need to rush.
6. Take three or more days each to reply to second and third emails wondering whether you received the first email. Also, don’t, unless you really feel like it, which should only happen for a few minutes per day at most.
7. When you do finally get around to replying, refer as vaguely as possible to its ongoing “processing.” Also, compose the response to appear as if you just woke up from a midday nap and aren’t quite lucid yet.
8. When the customer miraculously finds your phone number somewhere in the bowels of Teh Internets and ends up calling you out of frustration and/or wondering whether your company still exists, answer the phone using the classic, “Hello.” Not “Hello, Watch Grabber, where we ship you crappy watches, this is Dan, how may I help you?” Not “This is Dan with Watch Grabber, I don’t care about what you’re calling about but go ahead anyway…” Not “Hello, Watch Grabber.” Not even “Hello?” Just “Hello.” More of a statement of fact, really, as if you were reading stock prices as banally as possible or…answering phones at a watch company.
9. Later in the call, assuming the customer hasn’t yet ended the call after realizing almost immediately that leisurely email conversations are less obnoxious than this, put the customer on hold for two minutes before even asking for the order number, much less any other identifying information that would force you to put them on hold while you “look some stuff up.” After getting this information, ask the customer to “hang on,” and then put them on hold for another few minutes, or as long as you think anyone would be willing to wait with a silent phone held up to their ear before hanging amid a fit of profanity.

Follow these nine easy steps and you’ll be well on your way to bankruptcy and lawsuits in no time.