Ordering from Sonlight

...my first impressions.

I have been involved with Sonlight to some extent or another since my mom started it back in '90. Granted, my involvement is has been off and on over the years, but I am now at a completely different level: I am a customer!

Not only that, I'm a genuine, card-totin' "Classic Member" of the Sonlight community.

<oooo... ahhhh...>

You're all jealous, I can tell.

I placed my order on Friday, and, as per my request, they just walked it over to my cube, so their delivery system is fantastic! I felt that having them ship it to my house wasn't very efficient, since I'm driving there after I finish this post.

No, we don't have our kids yet, but in preparation for getting them, we decided we needed to learn Russian, and quick. So we now own Rosetta Stone Russian 1&2.

Our First Sonlight Order!

My experience:

I popped onto the website and did a search for "Russian," and quickly found what I was looking for. Cool!

But I remembered an email about a special offer for Rosetta Stone, and I couldn't find any indication of the deal on the product page. My wife told me I should call Customer Support.

Great idea! Especially since I'm going to be blogging about the experience... might as well go the whole way.

So I called, and was left waiting for about five minutes. The music loop was a little short, so that got a tad annoying. (Did I mention this is a complete review of my experience? <smile>)

"Thank you for calling Sonlight, this is Lindsey, may I have your name please?"

"Hi, Lindsey. This is Luke Holzmann, and I actually have a real question."

I know who Lindsey is, and she, I think, knows who I am, but we work on opposite sides of building and haven't been formally introduced. So, this is about as close to a "stranger" as I was going to get. Had it been, say, Karla, I may have had a biased customer support moment. All the better for you that it was Lindsey. This was a real call.

I explained my confusion, and she did some poking around to answer my question.

Sonlight does have great customer service!

This brought me to the checkout process.

Oh my. This was nasty. I had to actually look around to find the "Let Me Buy This Stuff, Please!" button. It wasn't where I expected it, and was buried under a mountain of text.

Next was a "Coupon Codes" page, almost as confusing--again, with too much text. But being the computer savvy guy that I am, I managed. I can't let thousands of homeschool moms beat me! If they can do it, so can I!

Everything else was a snap.

And, like I said, I have my order now.

Awesome.

Thus far, I am very happy customer of Sonlight.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Expectant Father

P.S. I met with one of the web guys this morning, and he now has my feedback for making the checkout process cleaner. I do love being able to test this stuff so I can offer suggestions to make it even better.

But, I'm not the only one who can provide feedback. Sonlight welcomes your feedback as well!