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Sears.com Vacuums Up Customer's Money

By Ed Foster, Section The Gripelog
Posted on Fri Mar 17, 2006 at 01:15:47 AM PDT

Buy a product online and then pick up your order at the local store -- it sounds like the best of both worlds. But when a reader's wife tried to buy a vacuum cleaner through Sears.com recently, she found it can actually combine the worst of the e-commerce and store shopping experiences.

"My wife ordered a vacuum from Sears.com," a reader recently wrote. "Sears.com informed my wife that she could pick her order up at one of the Sears stores conveniently located nearby, so she went to the Sears store in Santa Monica to pick up the vacuum. When she arrived, she was required to swipe the credit card she had used to order the vacuum and then her order popped up on a screen. She hit 'continue' and a storeroom clerk was paged to fill her order."

So far, so good. "The storeroom clerk came and checked her order in his mobile stock fulfilling device," the reader wrote. "He then checked off everything and went to pull her order. The vacuum was not in stock so he couldn't fulfill it, but he had no way of notifying the system that he couldn't fulfill it. So he sent my wife down to the vacuum department to see if there was a comparable unit there."

A salesman in the vacuum cleaner department tried hard to find the reader's wife a substitute but was unable to do so. "He said that in order to fix this, he would need to credit back her order and then reorder it from the Sears Store system," the reader wrote. "Before he could do this, my wife would have to get a credit return number from Sears.com. Sears.com said they would e-mail my wife the number shortly and she should wait in the store where the salesman would give her access to a terminal where she could get the e-mail. It never arrived."

Another call into Sears.com yielded a promise to send another confirming e-mail to a different address within an hour, but it didn't materialize either. "By that time, the store was closing and my wife was in tears,'' the reader wrote. "She has no vacuum cleaner, but Sears.com's order fulfillment system thinks she does. She tried to get the store manager to give her something in writing verifying that she did not have the product she ordered from Sears.com ... which the Sears store processed as delivered but couldn't deliver. The manager couldn't be bothered, told her that it was time for her to go home and she would have to take care of this herself through Sears.com. There was nothing Sears Stores could do about it."

Over the next few days, the reader and his wife called Sears repeatedly to try to rectify the problem. "So far, the three calls I've made to Sears.com has left me with some hope that I will see a credit on my Discover bill within the next several days," the reader reported. "Though my wife was assured twice and I was also assured twice that we would receive at least an e-mail confirmation, on the third call I was given a flat denial that anyone at Sears would have suggested that they sent out e-mail confirmations of credits. At this point, Sears.com has over $400.00 of our money and their computer fulfillment system thinks we have a vacuum. All we have so far is a wasted evening, stress, tears and more phone calls to make."

Even weeks later, the best Sears.com could do -- other than empty promises -- was to suggest to the reader that he attempt to reverse the credit card charge for the vacuum cleaner. "I had called again and was repeatedly promised that they would credit the account post haste," the reader said in his last report. "Tonight, I called and was asked by Sears.com customer service why I haven't disputed the charges with my credit card company? Discover has initiated that process this evening. My wife and I will never purchase anything from Sears again, nor will we be patronizing K-Mart which now owns Sears."

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Sears.com Vacuums Up Customer's Money | 111 comments (111 topical) | Post A Comment

Big problem at this point...[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#1)
by Anonymous User on Fri Mar 17, 2006 at 06:37:08 AM PDT

The manager couldn't be bothered, told her that it was time for her to go home and she would have to take care of this herself through Sears.com. There was nothing Sears Stores could do about it."

There are a few major rules for customers in retail (this is coming from someone who worked in retail for five years). The rule for this one (and which we lower-level employees told good customers who were getting the shaft) is "Be nice and polite until all else fails: then scream your freaking head off."

A manager doesn't want to deal with an angry customer. It's made worse when every other customer in the store sees that customer is getting the shaft. It makes them reconsider their own purchases, and whether they'll get good service if they need it. Most managers in the face of an angry tirade by someone who has gotten the shaft will cave in one way or another. This is sadly why customers who are jerks often get their way: they skip the politeness and go straight to the screaming. It really stinks in retail that the nicest customers often get the shaft, simply because they're the ones who won't put up a fight. It's backwards and lousy, but it's how things work in retail, at least in mass retail where all the company cares about is mass profit, customers be damned.

A good manager would have at least had the decency to make up a note on company stationary explaining what happened; this one obviously didn't care and wanted you out of his face as soon as possible. If you were talking with a department manager, this would have been the time to get the store manager. If you were talking to the store manager, this would be the time to ask for his name, his direct line, and a phone number where you could contact the district or regional manager.

Since this time is past, it is time to get ahold of your credit card company and immediately dispute the charges. Don't play around; you didn't get the item you want, and this is a transaction that looks to be going south fast (since Sears' system says you received what you paid for, you don't want to dilly-dally).

A similar thing happened to me twice at Circuit City; the big difference is that both times they sent me to another Circuit City and got me discounts on the items as a way of apology. Their service when things went bad kept me as a customer. Sears' service is an obvious indicator of which store to avoid in the future.

[ Reply to This ]

Sound advice[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#3)
by Anonymous User on Fri Mar 17, 2006 at 05:28:47 PM PDT

"Be nice and polite until all else fails: then scream your freaking head off." This is my own stratagem when dealing with any kind of customer service, tech support, or obstructionist bureaucracy. Results, unfortunately, may vary. -- It doesn't tend to work as well over the phone. Impressionable prospective customers aren't in earshot, and it's very easy for the guy at the other end to hang up, "accidentally" transfer your call to the wrong department, put you (back) in voice jail, or otherwise screw around. -- Recently I went to a local Chapters to pick up a newly-released but fairly obscure sci-fi book; comprehensiveness is usually a safe bet with Chapters. In this instance, it wasn't. I spent about half an hour trying to find it in the store. Then I consulted their computer inventory, which confirmed it was in stock. Then I asked for employee assistance. For another half an hour both of us (an employee and I) hunted for it in various plausible misshelving locations and in book displays (in the past, sometimes all the copies of a new book were in some "new and hot" display and none in the canonical location under the author's last name), to no avail. Eventually they checked for it in the stockroom, behind the counter, and elsewhere. They then claimed that they couldn't find it -- even though that was their job, and it was in stock! Politeness was obviously failing, so I blew my stack and told them that I wanted the runaround to end and the book in my hand in five (5) minutes or else. When they failed to produce it in time, I made a big display of dumping the $40-odd of other books I had collected on a table and walking out of the store. Let's hope the evidence of a fairly sizable lost sale plus the effect on other customers will make them think twice before they pull a stunt like that again, on me or anyone else. (I since obtained the book at a different store, where there were no problems locating it whatever. Note that this was a sci-fi book mainly of interest to geeks, not something with a crazy following like Harry Potter, where you can reasonably expect to have trouble finding copies. And its publication had been pushed back twice already, originally slated for January, then to February, and then to early March, so I had already experienced some aggro in trying to obtain it, which counted toward the amount I'll put up with before going nonlinear in an employee's face.) -- Never make actual threats or threatening gestures; they'll just call security or even the police. Just complain, and then complain loud, and then demand loud, and then walk away, abandoning all the items in your shopping cart. Do not give them a dime, or it will merely encourage them. ("Look! We can give these idiots the shaft and they will still give us money! WHOOPIE!") Of course, if they change their tune and give you your item, go ahead with your purchases and resume being polite. This will positively reinforce the behavior of doing what the customer wants. -- This applies not only to in-stock items being unfindable and to deadbeat rebates, coupon-redemptions, and Internet purchases, but to items being persistently out of stock and any manner of customer-hostile policies regarding hours, returns, etc.; for example, recently I tried to get a haircut and both of the local hairdressers had unlocked doors and lights on with people moving around inside but claimed they were closed/closing when I walked in and looked like I was expecting to be served. (It was the middle of the afternoon, not a Sunday, and I was in decent hygiene, hair length notwithstanding.) One was part of a department store; I let off steam at the visible employees in the hairdressing alcove and again at the customer service desk once it became apparent that my money wasn't good enough for them. At the other, a stand-alone barbershop, one of the employees actually offered to hairdress me after the three of them had first claimed to be closed, but they'd made too much of an effort to shoo me out and the first incident had soured my mood too much; I left. They clearly didn't want my money THAT badly. There are a couple of items my local grocery store frequently fails to stock that I (and probably other regular customers) buy regularly enough to justify their making sure they don't run out. I can't just stalk off when they do this, because then I wouldn't eat (they're the only one in range), but I can and do have words with the employees and make sure they're aware that they made a few dollars less that day than they might have if they'd bothered to order more straight away when they first ran low on these products instead of waiting until they were flat out AND people were complaining. (One of the items, no-preservative cookies baked in-store, is especially egregious; since they don't have to order them from some remote manufacturer and wait for delivery there is absolutely no excuse for them to ever run out. As soon as they are low they can just shovel another batch into the oven, and still they just sit there and let it run out. At least with the other item, it could be the case that it runs low, they place an order for more, and it runs out before the order ships; though it happens often enough I don't think they are ordering more quite quickly enough, or, for that matter, learning that they aren't.) Unfortunately, the pattern seems to be that the ecommerce industry has inspired the retail industry to begin its own race to the bottom in customer service and inventory management; this seems to be happening more and more frequently. Hairdressers keeping bankers' hours, grocery stores that don't restock, bookstores that misfile and can't file books, or worse built their reputation on comprehensiveness and are now often sold out of some titles ...

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

RE: Sound advice[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#11)
by Anonymous User on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 07:51:52 AM PDT

Let me get this straight. After the store employee(s) made what sounds like a more than good faith effort to find the book, you blew up at them. They didn't just check one spot on the shelf and give up; they made what sounds like a real effort to help you. When that failed, you "rewarded" the effort those employees made by "blowing your stack". I suspect what you taught them is not to waste too much effort on you the next time you come back.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Good faith effort[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#15)
by Anonymous User on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 06:35:39 PM PDT

If their inventory system says they have it in stock, I only count something as a "good faith effort" if at the end of it I have the product in my hands. It's their job to a) keep inventory accurate and b) keep track of where things are. If they won't produce an "in stock" item upon customer request, there is no excuse. Someone wasn't doing their job.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Someone wasn't doing their job[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#21)
by sconeu on Tue Mar 21, 2006 at 08:50:54 AM PDT

Yeah, but it wasn't the poor clerk who spent 1/2 hour trying to help you.

It was the receiving/backend guys who messed up the inventory.

You "punished" the wrong person.

--
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the United States of America.
[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Wrong person[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#54)
by Anonymous User on Wed Mar 22, 2006 at 12:35:38 AM PDT

I "punished" the only people accessible to receive customer feedback; what did you want me to do, go into the storeroom and get myself arrested? It's up to the company's internal communication mechanisms to make sure that negative (or otherwise) feedback from customers at the store's front end, picked up by customer-facing employees, makes its way to decision makers, and decisions make their way to all employees affected. My role is to attempt to buy a product, complain if this is thwarted, and leave. Then the ball is in their court. If they don't implement proper procedures to ensure feedback propagates appropriate effects, that's their problem.

--------
I am the terror that flaps in the net!
I am the little metal key missing from your IKEA furniture pack!

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Why even try to spin what you did?[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#63)
by foxyshadis1 on Sun Mar 26, 2006 at 01:53:40 AM PDT

B&N publishes corporate contact information (phone and address) on their website. The book's publishers most likely do the same (and if not, an internet search would find it). You could be slightly less lazy and a lot less asshole by directing your rage at someone besides those who try to help you. You didn't even talk to the manager, who'd be able to help you by ordering another copy from their warehouse.

You're right that it's a good idea to complain, to the right people, if you recieve poor service. However, you "blew your stack", threw down your purchases, and stormed out like a spoiled baby. The only feedback likely to make it up the chain is "some asshole came in today, make sure he doesn't get service from now on," because you didn't even bother to complain to someone who could make a difference. I hope you enjoyed fostering surliness in the staff.

The rest of your rant boils down to "people don't jump at my command". It's nice to know that people who run their own business are still willing to kick out undesirable customers.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

ask[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#125)
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[ Parent | Reply to This ]

ask[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#137)
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ask[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#138)
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[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Why they did not have it[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#73)
by Anonymous User on Sat Apr 15, 2006 at 01:18:23 PM PDT

You know, Bookstores frequently have problems with Shoplifters. That would explain why it said they had one when they did not.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

In Stock[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#24)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 21, 2006 at 10:45:03 AM PDT

After working in materials management for 30+ years I can tell you that the when the computer says "In Stock" it means maybe. If you believe it literally good luck.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Good faith effort[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#25)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 21, 2006 at 10:51:56 AM PDT

If you have the product in your hand, that's not a good faith effort, that's a success. A good faith effort, almost by definition, means lack of success.

The problem here is you're expecting book store employees to be both perfect and omniscient. And feel justified in punishing them when they are less than gods.

The books aren't locked down. If someone stole a book or moved it someplace you would never think to look, those employees are not going to find it short of looking at every single book in the store (and not even then if stolen). The employees could have done their job right and a _customer_ could have caused the problem. Yet you're giving the employees grief.

The other problem is that unless your performance was done with a manager in sight, you wasted your effort. Even with really conscientious employees, the bottom line is it doesn't hurt them directly if one sale walks out the door. A manager would care if he saw it, but the employees probably muttered about what an ungrateful person you were and went about their business.

Did you ask to speak to a manager? That's the only person you should have vented to and the only person who might have cared.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Glad not to have you as a customer[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#27)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 21, 2006 at 11:01:44 AM PDT

Obviously the computer said they had one copy of your obscure book in stock and someone STOLE IT. Unless you're willing to pay a lot more for eerything so they can count every book in the store on an hourly basis get over it. A good faith effort is just that. You can't base your decision of whether an effort was made based on results.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Are you serious?[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#60)
by Anonymous User on Thu Mar 23, 2006 at 10:52:10 AM PDT

Oh come on... cut the guy a break. There are countless reasons why the system may say something should be in stock but it's nowhere to be seen. It could have been a recieving error (more were reported than actually arrived), it could have been shoplifted and not deducted from inventory. Someone could have picked it up with the intent to buy, but later changed their mind and dropped it on some random shelf rather than putting it back where it belongs. The possibilities are endless.
The fact that an employee spent a half hour searching with you and "checked for it in the stockroom, behind the counter, and elsewhere" speaks very well of the the floor employees. However, the fact that you blew up over something that was not their fault, even though they did everything within their power to rectify speaks quite poorly of you.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

pasing[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#165)
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Re: MY DAUGHTERS DRESS[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#180)
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[ Parent | Reply to This ]

ask[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#109)
by masa on Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 08:07:20 PM PDT

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[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Should we take advice from someone...[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#13)
by beamdriver on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 10:28:50 AM PDT

...who doesn't understand the concept of paragraph breaks?

Anyway, you sound like a complete tool. The book was misfiled, or lost or perhaps stolen. The clerk made a pretty good effort to find it for you and when he couldn't...you yelled at him and demanded the book in five minutes?

Your other examples prove that point quite well. Were you a potential customer of mine, I'd ask you to take your business elsewhere.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Breaks[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#16)
by Anonymous User on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 06:40:25 PM PDT

I am fairly sure I formatted my text neatly. Most blogs (and Google Groups) don't then go and completely mangle it; apparently this one is different. Not my fault. The book in question had been issued in January. It took me until early March to get it. Every time -- EVERY SINGLE TIME -- before that, when I tried to get the book, I got the runaround instead. Once might be something gone wrong. Umpteen times is somebody acting in bad faith. And this was shopping at a chain that has a reputation for having a fairly comprehensive stock. Either they'd never heard of it, or they were sold out, or they had it in inventory but it mysteriously didn't actually seem to exist on the shop floor ... I got sick of it after the tenth or so time that they gave me some song and dance instead of the product I was willing to pay dozens of dollars for. Why do they dislike my money so much? It's also worth noting that the very next time after the stack-blowing time, when I walked out of the store I had the book cradled under one arm. It may not have had instant results, but it does seem to have had eventual results.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Use Preview before you post[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#22)
by jam on Tue Mar 21, 2006 at 09:30:20 AM PDT

Whether you formatted the text neatly or not, there is a "Preview" button available for use. The default here is "HTML Formatted", but it sounds like the choice of "Plain text" would have been more appropriate. In the future, try using Preview until it looks how you formatted it, and then post.

Otherwise, it does make it extremely difficult to read posts without breaks. (I used plain text on this post, and got paragraph breaks without problems, after previewing first)

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Case in Point[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#41)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 21, 2006 at 12:23:25 PM PDT

How providentially illustrative! You made an error in formatting your post--it looked right to you in the entry grid, but you had a fundamental misunderstanding of what would happen downstream of your entry, and you ended up making your post quite hard to read.

How would you prefer people respond to that error? By making a big scene about it and embarrassing you, suggesting that you are mentally deficient if you can't even handle simple HTML formatting? By ignoring it altogether? Or maybe by quietly mentioning it and letting you know that it's OK, we've all done it once or twice?

I suspect that few of us would select the first option. Most would probably prefer the middle option, but a fair few would probably like to be informed when they mess up, with some helpful advice how to do it right the next time, and some assurance that it happens to everyone.

Do you see how similar this is to your bookstore experience? Someone made a mistake. They probably thought they were doing the right thing, but didn't realize what would happen downstream. You, by blowing your stack, as you put it, responded in the first mode. Moreover, as has already been observed, the people in front of whom you threw your temper tantrum may not even have been the people who made the mistake! You sure showed them, though! Next time, they'll know better than to try to help you find some silly book that no one has ever heard of, or even cares about.

A rule of thumb that has served me particularly well for more years than many of these readers have been alive, is to always, always, always! treat other people the way I would hope to be treated if I were in their shoes. You still get jacked around once in a while, but for the most part, people respond incredibly well when you express even a small amount of appreciation for the work they do on your behalf.

I don't often say this to people I barely know, and please understand that I really don't mean to be rude, but if what you wrote above is an accurate description of how you tend to behave toward store clerks, I'd have to suggest that you are seriously in need of getting over yourself. Seriously. I'm sorry, I know that's harsh, but then, so is blowing up at a clerk because some publisher delayed the release of a book! So is blowing up at a hairdresser because she would rather spend her off-the-clock time with her friends or family than cutting yet another head of hair. So is chewing out a grocery store clerk because a product manager doesn't do his job to your satisfaction.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Mistake[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#55)
by Anonymous User on Wed Mar 22, 2006 at 12:41:59 AM PDT

"Do you see how similar this is to your bookstore experience? Someone made a mistake."

Actually, if you'd read the earlier posts (which I concede may be hard to read) you'd notice he (she?) said that they made this "mistake" and similar ones umpteen times in a row over a period of months. That does seem rather different from a one-off bad experience, and suggests to me that the store in question (which city and location BTW?) is doing something systematically wrong.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Million points of lights[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#61)
by Anonymous User on Thu Mar 23, 2006 at 07:36:39 PM PDT

Your story is a bit confusing; you first posted, in your one paragraph diatribe: "...(I since obtained the book at a different store, where there were no problems locating it whatever..." and now you claim: "...It's also worth noting that the very next time after the stack-blowing time, when I walked out of the store I had the book cradled under one arm. ..."

Which is it? Or is this just some "A Million Little Pieces" type recollection?

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Wrong Person[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#66)
by Anonymous User on Mon Mar 27, 2006 at 12:33:40 PM PDT

So lets see, you formatted it neatly and the software mangled it YET everyone else can post things in a readable format. LOL Matter of fact your whole rant seems to be its everyone elses fault but yours. Are you a Republican?

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Some customers[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#14)
by Garminski on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 11:49:24 AM PDT

Some customers are so "resouce intensive" that it is not worth persuing their business. You would appear to be one of those customers. What do you do for a living? Are you always on top of every situation? Does anything ever escape your notice? The examples you site seem to indicate you expect the world to bow to you as you pass. How do you treat people? Oh wait. You told us how you treat them above.

Instead of blowing your top at the bookstore why not thank them for their effort, buy your books and go else where? They didn't cause your book to be published late twice. They didn't ignore your request for help. It sounds like they treated you with respect and gave an honest effort to helping you. It could have been anything from a computer glitch (nobody who reads this site has ever seen that before) to a new employee who really messed up and put it in the wrong place.

Chill a little dude. "Reward" people for the effort they give you. When you get poor customer service, that is the time to start bitchin. Not when you get wonderful service but despite their best efforts they can't help you. If you feel you must "express" yourself try thanking the person who helped you and then complain to the manager that the store doesn't have the product you wanted.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Remember this is a business we're dealing with.[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#17)
by Anonymous User on Mon Mar 20, 2006 at 06:42:30 PM PDT

I reward businesses for actually supplying a product or service that I want, not for going through the motions (however elaborate) of doing so without actually doing so. And until lots more people do the same, there will continue to be a need for the GripeLog.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Re: Remember this is a business we're dealing with[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#28)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 21, 2006 at 11:05:53 AM PDT

<sigh> I suspect this goes to the heart of your particular problem. You weren't dealing with a "business". You didn't have a "business" working for 30 minutes or so trying to track down your book. You didn't blow your stack at a "business". These were PEOPLE that you were dealing with, PEOPLE who were trying to help you and PEOPLE who you treated poorly in response. People have been known to be imperfect, at least in my world, but apparently not in yours. At least these imperfect people sound like they tried to help you, which is totally different from the Sears manager in the story that started this. (That guy deserved a world-class eruption.)

If your problem was with the business (book not available), then you should have taken it up with the person best able to represent and control the business: the manager. Anything else is not an effort to resolve the problem, it's just spleen venting.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

I have to side with the other voices here...[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#29)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 21, 2006 at 11:08:55 AM PDT

"Blowing up" at personnel who are clearly making a good faith effort to locate an "in stock" item in the store is just not reasonable.

I haven't seen anyone mention yet that retail stock items are stolen all the time, either internally or by shoplifters. These items generally remain on the stock list until a complete inventory or a "hot count" is performed. So now the poor staff is hearing you mouth off AND they're going to catch some grief because a shoplifter may have been clever enough to get the book out of the store undetected.

It would have been a whole different matter if you had pre-ordered the book and been notified that it was being held for you. Even then, I would have been satisfied to complain a bit about the waste of my time to drive down there. As long as they replaced the item in a reasonable period of time, I'd be fine.

The sad part about the incident you relate is that it dilutes the efforts of other people to correct REAL problems. When I ran a stereo equipment shop, I often found myself working on three or four customer issues at a time...three were just silly (yes, I DO mean silly) and one was actually a problem which should have received my undivided attention. Of course, even if I solved the important problem, I was bogged down taking and making calls to all four customers, as well as to my distributors and repair sites, so it took four times as long as it should have to make things right with the single customer who really deserved it.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

How arrogant and spoiled...[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#67)
by ekuns on Mon Mar 27, 2006 at 08:39:30 PM PDT

So someone can go out of their way to fantastic lengths to try to please you, but if they fail due to someone else's actions, you don't care. All you care about is the end result and if you don't get the end result you want you feel justified in taking it out on the very people who tried to help you. What are the odds that these people will try to help you in the future? I hope you never do this in a restaurant where they can do things to your food that you won't know about in the back room before they deliver it to you.

Yet when you make an honest mistake in not realizing that this blog uses HTML formatting by default, you refuse to acknowledge that honest mistake, instead blaming external forces. (Not that that surprises me. It's perfectly consistent with someone who yells at store staff who are trying to help but fail to produce after an extended effort.)

If you want to deal with the business, deal with the business, not the individual employees. Write. Write to a corporate office. Write a polite and detailed letter explaining your grievance. THAT is how you can get results and deal with the business. When you blow your stack at floor employees, you're hurting the wrong people without much of a chance of achieving the result you want.

Unless your desired result is to feel better by taking out your disappointment and frustration on another person by making them feel bad and by yelling in public. But if that is your goal, then you are not dealing with a business. Instead, the staff of the business is dealing with someone who is terribly spoiled.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Good Faith Efforts[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#26)
by CowboyinBRLA on Tue Mar 21, 2006 at 10:53:47 AM PDT

Here's a couple of thoughts.

Maybe the book had arrived at the store, been properly shelved, and then someone stole it. Do you expect the bookstore to survey its entire inventory, every day, to see what might have "walked" and remove it from the computer?

You seem to misunderstand the very meaning of the word "good faith effort". It doesn't mean "The company gave you exactly what you wanted." It means that it tried to do so, within the means that it had available.

I'm not saying you should be glad they didn't have the book. Obviously, you were inconvenienced by their inability to find a book their computer indicated was in stock. But that's hardly a reason to become a diva and demand that the store serve you immediately, on your terms, or else you'll throw a tantrum and leave.

It's a book--regardless of how long you were waiting for it to come out, your life will go on if you didn't get it that day. It might have been nice if the store offered you a courtesy discount on your other items; it would have been smart of them to say "we'll continue to look for the book and if necessary, special-order it for you and hold it for you when it comes in". But it sounds to me like, for all the effort the company went through to TRY to meet your needs, you thanked them by throwing a fit.

I've had customers like that in my own business. Some of them have been shocked to find out that when they threaten to leave, I offer to beat them to the punch and cancel their accounts. Not surprisingly, most of them shut up immediately.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]