The Tick Tock Shop in Colorado Springs is celebrating its 50th year in business. The TikTok Shop operated by the social media giant only opened five months ago. But the similarity in names is causing some headaches for the brick and mortar Tick Tock Shop.
The Tick Tock Shop, located at N Circle Dr and Pikes Peak Ave, is the largest seller of clocks and watches in the region, according to the store owners.
The TikTok Shop launched last September as a separate tab within the social media app, and it sells any number of e-commerce goods. It can be viewed as a competitor of sorts to Amazon.
After the launch of the e-commerce store, employees at the clock and watch shop said phone calls from lost customers began increasing.
“About half the calls that we get are for the app TikTok and not actually a customer trying to get their clock repaired or order or buy something from us specifically, but from the app itself,” said Rebecca Kruger, who’s worked at the Tick Tock Shop for about a year-and-a-half.
She said there used to be an occasional call from app users asking why their video wouldn’t upload, but after the shopping section launched last year, the calls began pouring in. And the callers are often very annoyed customers who haven’t received the products they ordered, she said.
And since the TikTok Shop allows sellers from anywhere to sell any number of products, the calls coming into Colorado Springs have had some crazy requests. Because of that, Tick Tock Shop employees began writing a list of some of the more interesting calls.
“We've gotten some for doorbell cameras, dresses, pots and pans, detangler brushes, sweaters, walkie talkies, vacuums, washing machines, humidifiers,” said Kruger, reading off the list. “We got a specific one for green balloons. That kind of thing.”
Tyler Flournoy is another Tick Tock Shop employee who’s taken his fair share of these confused and angry calls. If they answer during store hours, he said they can usually convince the caller that they aren’t the Tick Tock Shop they’re looking for.
But if the call comes in outside of the store hours, the voicemails can get rude.
“There's one particular one. It was this little kid. He had to be like a matter of 10 [years old], I don't know exactly,” recalled Flournoy with a laugh. “He called us once. He was very polite. He wanted to know where his package was. It was like eight in the morning. He called us again [after hours] and said he hated us. Said he hated our guts. I was like, ‘Oh, all right.’”
The error is an obvious and honest mistake. The similarity of names means online searches can yield both results. A TikTok representative said they do not offer a customer support phone number, meaning the Tick Tock Shop is likely the only one customers can find.
TikTok told News5 that their customer support is fully staffed and though they don’t have a support phone line, customers can get information and help about their orders inside the TikTok app.
Brothers Jonathan and Carl Mattson run the Colorado Springs Tick Tock Shop together, after their dad started it five decades ago.
Carl prides his shop on the customer service they provide, but still suggested some of the onus is on the people calling his shop.
“It's kind of hard to understand why people don't follow up on where they actually ordered their items from and just pick our phone number,” said Carl Mattson. “A lot of them can't decide that we're not who they want, they insist that we can help them.”
Jonathan Mattson said they’ve changed their after hours answering machine and are brainstorming with a web developer on how to further avoid confusion. But in the meantime, some irate calls will likely continue.
“I've had all kinds of crazy requests. I had a really frustrated customer of the other TikTok Shop who demanded that I change my name,” said Jonathan Mattson. “But we've had the name for 50 years.”
Mattson said he understood why the giant global social media app wouldn’t want to have a phone number listed. But he wondered if the issue might speak to a broader problem with customer service for the app.
“I think their customer service needs a little bit of an upgrade,” said Jonathan Mattson. “They are apparently very hard to get ahold of. So my caution is to realize this before you order anything from the other TikTok Shop.”
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Email Senior Reporter Brett Forrest at brett.forrest@koaa.com. Follow @brettforrestTVon X and Brett Forrest News on Facebook.
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