Customer Service

Hi Everyone:

This weeks topic is one that I am sure you have all experienced, but not in a good way.

I have had the unfortunate mispleasure of visiting two of those home improvement, big box stores (rhymes with cheapo); twice in the last couple of weeks. The weird part is that one visit was in New York State and the second visit was in New Jersey. The customer service was basically the same at both. They have the couldn't care less attitude. Everyone is a shopper and you all know how you would like to be treated when you are shopping and need some help. Maybe even be treated as a valued customer; especially in these hard economic times that we are currently living in when money is so tight. Consequently, even the employees at these big box stores are customers themselves, somewhere, someplace, so you would think that customer service would be their first priority knowing that they also know how they would like to be treated but.........................NOOOO!

During my first visit, I found it difficult to find the item that I needed. After walking up and down a few aisles, sometimes more then twice, my first reaction was to find an employee. Problem number one: there is never an employee around when you need one. That was my case. So I walked around the same vicinity again in hopes of finding an employee. As I turned into a new aisle I spotted an employee at the other end walking towards me. As I got close, I asked the employee if he (it was a man) could help me find the item I was looking for. Without even stopping, the employee told me that this was not his department. I had stopped and as he continued walking away from me I asked if he could find an employee who could help me? Do you know what his response to me was? Nothing, absolutely nothing. He never responded to me. I guess that a potential paying customer was not important to him. Maybe that employee should remember who makes it possible for him to receive a paycheck. Problem number two: being told that it wasn't the employee's department. Problem three: not even offering to help me find an employee who could.

I then walked all the way over and down to the Customer Service Department to request their assistance in finding an employee who could help me. Although I should have mentioned the incident to the Customer Service Department, I didn't since I had already wasted too much time. I had been in the store for almost 30 minutes and by this time all I wanted was to get my items and get the hell out of dodge. After waiting about 5 minutes for my turn, there were two customers in front of me; the customer service employee did call for an employee to come to the Customer Service Department. It took another 8 minutes, but the employee did come and was able to help me find what I was looking for.

So you would think end of story right? Wrong! I went to the check out and as usual, there was only one employee operated check out open but had a long line. The 4 automated check outs were open with only one customer at each one. I picked a check out and waited. The customer in front of me didn't have a lot to check out (hence the reason why I picked that one) but there was some kind of problem in her ability to pay and she needed the assistance of the one employee who oversees all 4 automated check outs. The employee was able to help the customer and then it was my turn. I only had 2 items to check out and neither one would scan into the system. I then turned to ask for help from the overseer, but he was busy with another customer and then another. I had to wait my turn for help from the employee. It took over one hour for me to purchase my 2 items. I would have loved to have gone to one of those small hardware stores instead of the big box stores, but guess what? They have all closed since the big box store opened and the little guys couldn't compete.

The problems as I see it are these: since the economy is in the toilet, (including this company's bottom line) in the infinite wisdom of this company, they have 1) most likely laid off employees to try to improve their bottom line, 2) since they have fewer employees they should cross train employees to work in multiple departments and 3) retrain and keep retraining their employees until they get the significance of the fact that customer service is vitally important and they always come first. It is painfully obvious to me that common sense is dead with this company. Management should be aware. Bottom line rules and customers loose! But without customers, stores close and then employee loose!

Now the second visit was to the same chain big box store, but this time it was in New Jersey. The person I was with needed to use a battery operated handicapped cart. We first checked to see if it was plugged in, it wasn't. She then sat down and turned the key to check the meter to see if the battery was fully charged, it was. We then took off to look for the items she needed. The cart was surprisely fast and someone had even written in black magic marker on the rear "speedy". We went to where the item is located at the New York and Conneticut stores that I visit. Of course it wasn't there. We found an employee who told us that the item was at the other end of the store in the outdoor section. We were able to find that item and the other ones that she needed without help, thank goodness. But about 15 feet back into the store the cart died. I checked the cart but it was dead. I tried to push it but the wheels were in a locked position. The cart died in the middle of the aisle. We then had to slowly walk the rest of the way. On my way out of the store I went to customer service and told the employee that the cart had died and was in the middle of the aisle. Her response and only response was, "oh well". She couldn't have cared less if she wanted to.

Again, where has common sense gone? Management and employees know that customer service is important, but a customer service employee saying oh well? Common sense is so important, get with it people.