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Customer Service, Black Friday, Economy And Consumers
By Eaglehawk | December 4, 2008
I have been dealing with alot of Customer Service people lately, more so than usual. Why you may or may not be asking me, well simply I have been doing alot of shopping, yes some of it has been for Christmas, some of it hasn’t been. I have had some of the worst experiences of my life. I want to share them with you.
Case Number 1
My wife and I took our kids to get their pictures taken, this is the letter I sent to them.
November 18, 2008
Via: USPS and email
CPI Corp
1706 Washington Avenue
Saint Louis, MO 63103To whom it may concern:
On November 15, 2008 my wife and I took our 7 month old and our 4 year old to your studio located at 15955 FM 529 Road, in Houston, Texas. I felt you should be aware of the horrendous service we received. First of all we did not receive a reminder call about the appointment.
We arrived at your studio at 9:50 am for a 10:00 am appointment. The young lady that was there opening the studio told my family and the others that were waiting that she would be with us shortly that she was not even supposed to be there yet and she was not sure if the cameras were even working as she had understood that they were not working the previous day. Soon after that 2 other young ladies showed up. At that time the three discussed who should be there and who should not, and if
the first young lady should stay and help since she was supposed to be in later in the day but was early.The process of taking the pictures was completed by 10:30. At that point we proceeded to the station where we would view the pictures and make our selections that we would want to purchase, a process that took fifteen minutes to do.
We then proceeded to the station where we would attempt to make payment for the services we were receiving. This is where things went downhill. From the time we started at the cash register to the time we left was a period of 1 hour and 15 minutes. During that time we had 3 different people try to process our purchase along with an additional person who had come in to replace a light bulb for one of the cameras. Their reasoning for this taking so long was that they could not figure out how to apply the necessary discounts as we were purchasing the platinum package. At one point they lost what they called session code. They argued amongst themselves for a period of time while they tried to figure out how handle this. The first young lady that was there, told one of her co-workers, “I don’t know how to do this so someone else is going to have to do it, or tell me how” in a rude way and proceeded to slam things down on the desk.
I appreciate the time you have taken to train your employees and I believe this would be considered unacceptable. I also thank you for the time you have taken to listen to my concerns, that this letter will
allow you to improve service and make it more enjoyable for all future customers.
I thing I had failed to mention in the letter was the fact that on our picture CD was a picture of someone else. Ugly picture at that.
Case Number 2
Discount Tire repairing a tire
I always purchase my tires at discount tire, because I love their lifetime road hazard warranty. On November 26, I took my wife’s Saturn into the closest store to have the 4 valve steams replaced as I had received a notification of a recall, and I also noticed there was a staple in one of the tires. Well it turned out that they could not repair the one tire so I told them to go ahead and replace it. That is when I was told that the cost would be $100+. Which of course I told them that I had purchased the road hazard warranty and was told that I had not. I attempted to get the clerk to understand that I had purchased it as I always do, they would not even talk to me about it. So reluctantly I purchased a new Tire and this time I watched them put the road hazard on and I even took a picture with my camera phone showing that they had.
Case Number 3
Wal-Mart Lazy Employees
This is the letter I sent them.
To whom it may concern:
On November 27, I was in your store located at 6060 North Fry Road, Katy TX. I want to enlighten you about an experience I had. The store was not very busy as it was around 7:00 am, and I went to electronics to pick up a couple of games for the Nintendo DS that my wife wanted to have. I went back and found the closest sales associate his name was Miguel. I asked him if he would give me assistance in purchasing some Nintendo DS games. Unfortunately for me, he said .No you will have to go and find someone else, as he has the keys.. Now I understand that he did not have the keys to open the case, however what was not acceptable was the fact that I had to do his job and find another associate that could help me. I have worked in retail in the past and understand that if you don.t have the keys to open a cage you find another associate that can help the customer, and not brush off the customer telling them that they have to go find someone to help them. I hope that this letter will help you train employees in the future to help customers better. Thank you in advance.
Whatever happened to the customer is always right? What ever happened to putting the customer first? Why is the customer forced to do the employees job? Am I the only one experiencing this sort of activity? I plan to stop shopping at places I have a bad experience, is anyone else thinking about doing this?
-- Weather When Posted --
- Temperature: 43°F;
- Humidity: 64%;
- Heat Index: 43°F;
- Wind Chill: 37°F;
- Pressure: 30.31 in.;
Categories: Customer Service, shopping
Technorati Tags: Consumers, Customer Service, Holidays, shopping
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Oh boy, you had some rough experiences there. Was there any follow up from the companies?
January 31st, 2009 at 10:39 am
No, unfortunately none of them felt the need to follow up. The closest thing to a follow up that I received was an “auto-reply” from the picture study corporate saying they were going to send my letter to the local store.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:19 am
What ever the things happen think that it is good always. So think about the kids that you had with and lead a peaceful life in future.