Post Number 100
Wow. 100 posts for me.
I just did a recap of my friends adventure with an online music store and the grief he has gone through to get a deserved refund. I too have had my more than fare share of discussions and feuds with customer "service" representatives in the last year. My gripes were related to our purchase of new appliances that have shortly after delivery, quit working. I was told by several employees that I was locked into the service they provided and if I didn't like it to go screw. Both times have required multiple days at home waiting on service techs and their 8 hour appointment windows. The last time I did get a new appliance delivered and I felt vindicated.
The point here though is not that I won or that my friend may win. The point is we were customers who had problems and were not given appropriate service. What ever happened to the customer always being right? I mean if a restaurant gave crap service, you would complain and it would be taken care of on the spot with an apology from the manager. Over the phone or online you get a case of the ass from some disembodied ninny reading a script who is always unable to offer the help you request or anything close to what you request.
An 8 hour appointment for a faulty installation should not be acceptable. And then, then to miss the appointment altogether? If you order a pizza, a fucking pizza, and were told it would be on your door in 30 minutes and it wasn't it would be free. If you ordered peperoni and it showed up with sausage it would be free. These dicks installed a dryer incorrectly and could have burned down my house and I had to take 3 days off work and make countless phone calls to get my 2 month old dryer replaced. Even then It was me reminding them that the dryer in place may be a fire hazard and that if my house was damaged because of their lack of action I would be pleased as punch as long as nobody was hurt.
I bought something for the Younger from Walmart.com. It showed up past the promised delivery date and was damaged. I could take it back to a local Walmart but would have to eat the shipping. When I asked why I am being held responsible for shipping a damaged product the idiot at the customer "service" desk told me that because Walmart.com and Walmart are not the same store she really couldn't help me. The good people at the Walmart.com customer "service" hot line offered for me to ship the item back to them, then they would refund the return shipping to me in 4 to 6 weeks. Again no reasonable answer to why I should want to pay to have a defective item shipped to me could be offered.
I have had it with these rude and awful people and their inability to actually help anybody. Especially when the help required to save a customer is right in front of them. The customer it telling them what they want to make things better and usually it is to return or replace the crap they sent in a timely manner with as little inconvenience to the customer. Why is this so freaking hard to figure out?
Because of the poor service I no longer shop at Sears, HH Greg or Walmart. I tell people all the time how crap the service was and how rude the people were and how awful the in home service was. I mention it to people on several occasions whenever the subject comes up to be sure that people know how bad my experiences were and hope that they too join me in my boycott. I hope they do. I hope people continue to stop shopping at Sears, HH Greg and Walmart and I hope that me telling my true stories of customer service hell convinces them not to shop at these places. I hope that my efforts help lead to a revitalized the customer service industry so we can all enjoy shopping, knowing in advance that if we buy something we don't want we won't have to fight to get it returned.
I just did a recap of my friends adventure with an online music store and the grief he has gone through to get a deserved refund. I too have had my more than fare share of discussions and feuds with customer "service" representatives in the last year. My gripes were related to our purchase of new appliances that have shortly after delivery, quit working. I was told by several employees that I was locked into the service they provided and if I didn't like it to go screw. Both times have required multiple days at home waiting on service techs and their 8 hour appointment windows. The last time I did get a new appliance delivered and I felt vindicated.
The point here though is not that I won or that my friend may win. The point is we were customers who had problems and were not given appropriate service. What ever happened to the customer always being right? I mean if a restaurant gave crap service, you would complain and it would be taken care of on the spot with an apology from the manager. Over the phone or online you get a case of the ass from some disembodied ninny reading a script who is always unable to offer the help you request or anything close to what you request.
An 8 hour appointment for a faulty installation should not be acceptable. And then, then to miss the appointment altogether? If you order a pizza, a fucking pizza, and were told it would be on your door in 30 minutes and it wasn't it would be free. If you ordered peperoni and it showed up with sausage it would be free. These dicks installed a dryer incorrectly and could have burned down my house and I had to take 3 days off work and make countless phone calls to get my 2 month old dryer replaced. Even then It was me reminding them that the dryer in place may be a fire hazard and that if my house was damaged because of their lack of action I would be pleased as punch as long as nobody was hurt.
I bought something for the Younger from Walmart.com. It showed up past the promised delivery date and was damaged. I could take it back to a local Walmart but would have to eat the shipping. When I asked why I am being held responsible for shipping a damaged product the idiot at the customer "service" desk told me that because Walmart.com and Walmart are not the same store she really couldn't help me. The good people at the Walmart.com customer "service" hot line offered for me to ship the item back to them, then they would refund the return shipping to me in 4 to 6 weeks. Again no reasonable answer to why I should want to pay to have a defective item shipped to me could be offered.
I have had it with these rude and awful people and their inability to actually help anybody. Especially when the help required to save a customer is right in front of them. The customer it telling them what they want to make things better and usually it is to return or replace the crap they sent in a timely manner with as little inconvenience to the customer. Why is this so freaking hard to figure out?
Because of the poor service I no longer shop at Sears, HH Greg or Walmart. I tell people all the time how crap the service was and how rude the people were and how awful the in home service was. I mention it to people on several occasions whenever the subject comes up to be sure that people know how bad my experiences were and hope that they too join me in my boycott. I hope they do. I hope people continue to stop shopping at Sears, HH Greg and Walmart and I hope that me telling my true stories of customer service hell convinces them not to shop at these places. I hope that my efforts help lead to a revitalized the customer service industry so we can all enjoy shopping, knowing in advance that if we buy something we don't want we won't have to fight to get it returned.
posted by Mr. Bebout at 1:38:00 PM
5 Comments:
This is just one more reason for me not to shop at Walmart. I haven't been in the store for 4 years and counting.
P.S. Congrats on 100 posts!
I had a problem with hhgregg involving the fridge. The freezer door was delivered with a big scratch on it, so they agreed to bring me a new door, but they didn't put it on right, and the freezer didn't quite seal correctly. I didn't realize that was the problem though, so instead I thought there was something wrong with the freezer because water kept collecting in it, and everything would frost over in days. Eventually I called out for service, and the service guy made about minute's worth of adjustments to the freezer door, and now everything is great. But the thing is, if only that first idiot had installed the door right in the first place, or better yet, if the fridge hadn't been delivered with a huge scratch on it in the first place -- which, by the way, was not just a scratch, but a scratch with what appeared to be a terrible touch up job, like it was done with correction fluid or something. Because I saw them break the seal on the box, that nonsense had to come from the factory itself, which is another rant altogether, how it is that something that looked so obviously bad left the factory in the first place.
All in all, I am glad your house didn't burn down.
Me too. I just wish I didn't have to spend so much time convincing stores to offer good customer service.
If I told my clients that they would have to wait 8 hours to have a meeting me they would shit a goose.
Believe it or not, the Walmart lady was probably "right" in not being able to help you. I remember when Things Remembered whet online & people would bring their screwed up crap to us, we had to help them, or reimbursed shipping. We were a totally separate thing from them. Which I agree, makes no sense at all. I am not sure if they are still like that, but they never should have gone live with a program like that. JC Penney's has their shit together & can help you when the catalog screws up, but unfortunately stores are so eager to get online they don't cover all the bases first.
I just got a new couch & chair & was told by the Sofa Express salesman they would at least get my old one out to the curb. Well they just left 15 minutes ago & I have a small living room filled with a lot of large furniture -they laughed at me when I asked if they were taking the old one out. Now I have no idea how I am getting this old huge couch out of my second story!
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