Of Meetings and Webcams
Thursday, May 10th, 2007“Are you Bob?”
“Well yes, I am.”
Judging by the confusion on Bob’s face, I wasn’t convinced that this is the guy I was set to meet.
“Are you expecting an 11:00 o’clock meeting with someone?”
“No.”
Did I mention that introductions can be tricky?
I’m a bit of a geek, and purchase electronics on regular basis. A chain of suppliers that shall remain unnamed - until later in the article - has hit my bad books over the years, but they are hard to ignore. Their stores are everywhere, and they have a lot of toys someone like me likes to play with. As such, once every couple of years I go in to see if their customer service has improved. My last attempt of this kind was a few days ago.
I was after a webcam, but couldn’t resist strolling the aisles to check out the latest goodies. It wasn’t long before I was approached by a ‘helpful sales rep’.
I’ve heard these guys talk. Most of them know shit all about the products they are selling. Sure, they come of as knowledgeable, but in the end they are just sales reps, not tech gurus. The store doesn’t hire gurus, because they are able to match customers with the products they need; The sales reps with limited knowledge push the most expensive products including the useless extended warranties.
After politely declining the assistance offered by the rep, I proceeded on my merry way straight into the face of another rep offering to help, and then another. Three reps in 10 mins.
I found what I needed without their help, and proceeded to the cash register only to find that the whole store has only two, and one of them was closed. The open one was doing a product exchange. While the reps assaulted me in the aisles, here I was stuck at the cash register waiting another five minutes for a single check out clerk to do her job.
Future Shop, get your damn act together. I’ve only been waiting for 10 years for you guys to get this customer service thing figured out. I’ll see you again in 2009, and hopefully by then you’ve finally got it right. I’m won’t hold my breath though.