Extinct: Customer Service- rant

[DonTadow]

That story...wow...incredible...reminds me why I'm glad to live north of the border

I wonder if that guy ended up suing or something?

Who'd run around forging $2 bills in the first place?

Banshee

I almost hate to say it, but it wouldn't have surprised me if race (or at least income) played a factor.

Most of you guys know, I"m a black man with fairly long dreadlocks, when i went there, i was in the midst of my bronchitus, i was wearing baggy pants a heavy sweatshirt, my hair was wild as i had just gotten up.

Now, yesterday, I went to a different store, different results. The store i bought it is in a racially tense area between middle eastern-american, european american and african american races. Instead, I put on a suit and tie as if heading to work, knotted my dreads in the way i wear them for a power meeting and went to a store in a more racially blind area on the border of an affluent part of Detroit and a suburb. I explained to the tech person that i didnt get a cd and the wrong card was included in the box, telling him the truth. Ididnt need to speak to any manager, or 4 other managers or the manufacture. He immediately apologized, and exchanged it for the 1950xt within 10 minutes.

What made me do this, the fact that I saw myself giving up and even when i gave up, the 1600 that was in the box (which i'm not 100 percent sure was a reboxed item that best buy tried to put off on me) crashed my system. Also, simplicity's response just stuck with me. I remembered seeing all these other customers returning items with no hassles, and thinking "i wonder if... .

Maybe it was racism, maybe prejudice based on income or maybe it was just because it was a different store. As of last night 11 p.m., i'm just happy i got the video card i paid for at the price i scouted it for.

 

[Simplicity]

I'm glad to hear that it worked out. I wonder whether the race was a bigger factor, or whether the suit was (well played, by the way). Who is going to say "no" to a customer in a suit?

Have fun with NWN2. Slay an orc for me.

 

[Banshee16]

I almost hate to say it, but it wouldn't have surprised me if race (or at least income) played a factor.

Most of you guys know, I"m a black man with fairly long dreadlocks, when i went there, i was in the midst of my bronchitus, i was wearing baggy pants a heavy sweatshirt, my hair was wild as i had just gotten up.

Now, yesterday, I went to a different store, different results. The store i bought it is in a racially tense area between middle eastern-american, european american and african american races. Instead, I put on a suit and tie as if heading to work, knotted my dreads in the way i wear them for a power meeting and went to a store in a more racially blind area on the border of an affluent part of Detroit and a suburb. I explained to the tech person that i didnt get a cd and the wrong card was included in the box, telling him the truth. Ididnt need to speak to any manager, or 4 other managers or the manufacture. He immediately apologized, and exchanged it for the 1950xt within 10 minutes.

What made me do this, the fact that I saw myself giving up and even when i gave up, the 1600 that was in the box (which i'm not 100 percent sure was a reboxed item that best buy tried to put off on me) crashed my system. Also, simplicity's response just stuck with me. I remembered seeing all these other customers returning items with no hassles, and thinking "i wonder if... .

Maybe it was racism, maybe prejudice based on income or maybe it was just because it was a different store. As of last night 11 p.m., i'm just happy i got the video card i paid for at the price i scouted it for.

Wow, I'd hope that race wasn't a factor. It's not nearly as much of a factor where I live....though nobody's perfect. Maybe it was how you were dressed on the two occasions, or maybe you just got a guy having a better day at the other store or something?

Sometimes it's good to give the feedback anyways....you wouldn't need to mention anything about the paper, because your issue's been fixed, but if you at least send them a nice e-mail, they can be made aware of the problem. I tend to try to believe the best of people, until they disappoint me. If they make a mistake, I expect them to fix it. That letter to Best Buy resolved my issue at the time, and the manager in particular told him that he appreciated me letting them know, because it was a new location, and they were having trouble with some over-enthusiastic staff trying to resolve issues without needing to involve management....which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in this particular instance, it backfired, and he needed to know, so he could fix the problem.

In another instance I had a guy at the grocery store who was cutting sandwich meat for us, and accidentally cut himself, then dripped his blood all over the meat that he gave us. We mentioned it to the manager, and I felt horrible because I don't like to complain. But it turned out that he was a problem employee, and this issue was I guess the straw that broke the camel's back, and the manager thanked us, because it helped give her a reason to terminate the employee. I feel bad, but sometimes companies need customers to tell them when they're messing up, or they never learn.

Personally, I always tell my customers "if you don't tell me what's wrong, I can't fix the problem".

Anyways, just feedback from someone tangentially in the customer service industry (well, sales).

Banshee

 

[ssampier]

I'm glad everything is working now. I am sorry you had the go through that process (especially since the police were involved), all for naught.

 

[John Crichton]

Personally, I always tell my customers "if you don't tell me what's wrong, I can't fix the problem".

I've found that it's very hard to get good feedback unless I almost stumble upon it, as a manager. Some folks are better than others but more often than not people just let things go and I don't find out for months about an ongoing problem.

 

[DonTadow]

Wow, I'd hope that race wasn't a factor. It's not nearly as much of a factor where I live....though nobody's perfect. Maybe it was how you were dressed on the two occasions, or maybe you just got a guy having a better day at the other store or something?

Sometimes it's good to give the feedback anyways....you wouldn't need to mention anything about the paper, because your issue's been fixed, but if you at least send them a nice e-mail, they can be made aware of the problem. I tend to try to believe the best of people, until they disappoint me. If they make a mistake, I expect them to fix it. That letter to Best Buy resolved my issue at the time, and the manager in particular told him that he appreciated me letting them know, because it was a new location, and they were having trouble with some over-enthusiastic staff trying to resolve issues without needing to involve management....which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in this particular instance, it backfired, and he needed to know, so he could fix the problem.

In another instance I had a guy at the grocery store who was cutting sandwich meat for us, and accidentally cut himself, then dripped his blood all over the meat that he gave us. We mentioned it to the manager, and I felt horrible because I don't like to complain. But it turned out that he was a problem employee, and this issue was I guess the straw that broke the camel's back, and the manager thanked us, because it helped give her a reason to terminate the employee. I feel bad, but sometimes companies need customers to tell them when they're messing up, or they never learn.

Personally, I always tell my customers "if you don't tell me what's wrong, I can't fix the problem".

Anyways, just feedback from someone tangentially in the customer service industry (well, sales).

Banshee

AGreed. I sent an email to best buy and ati the night it happened, detailing the incident and really describing how it feels like to be bounced between two companies. I

 

[Banshee16]

AGreed. I sent an email to best buy and ati the night it happened, detailing the incident and really describing how it feels like to be bounced between two companies. I

Well, good luck. Enjoy NWN2. I'm about halfway through Act 2 at the moment.

Make sure to update with all the patches before playing. Some of them really improve playable speed.

Banshee

 

[3catcircus]

That story...wow...incredible...reminds me why I'm glad to live north of the border

I wonder if that guy ended up suing or something?

Who'd run around forging $2 bills in the first place?

Banshee

Being polite doesn't work. Being right doesn't work. This is why I am a firm believer in the need nowadays for everyone to do a "Falling Down" episode and just be allowed to kill as many morons as possible in as short a period of time as possible. Kind of like those radio station giveaways where they swirl thousands of dollars in a booth and you have a minute to grab as much money as possible.

 

[Vigilance]

I recently bought a big comics order from a store in texas. Now I expected to wait a little, since I placed the order on the 23. But they billed by card on the 29th and at that point said it would be shipped the next day.

Yesterday I emailed them and they said "we were delayed because of the holidays, it's shipping today".

According to their computer, it still hasn't shipped.

I hate it when customer service people just say whatever they feel like they need to in order to get me off the phone.

I should have gotten a DS, Id be playing it right now.

 

[Squire James]

Stores do tend to have a lot of "appearance discrimination". Most store employees seem to be trained to make a snap judgement of every customer by their appearance, and treat them accordingly. This definitely affects the kind of help you get when you ask for help. Sometimes their "rules" get a little cryptic.

It's kinda sad that you sometimes have to put on an act to get good customer service, and I definitely haven't mastered it yet. But sometimes that's what you gotta do.

I must say, in NWN 2 that whole "foster child" thing at the beginning looks pretty strange when this elf seems to adopted a dwarf or half-orc...