Don’t you just love it when you call a shop to verify that they have an item in stock, carefully decsribing the item and brand name to be told that yes, they have said item only to arrive at the store (in the pouring rain) to find that the clerk was referring to a completely different item? AND…the item you seek is in fact, not in stock. —An Hour I Won’t Get Back
This article appears in Mar 18-24, 2010.
and they wonder why items have serial numbers these days…
(or should that be cereal numbers Paingirl?
not sure in this case… since it’s not really threatening)
a little research would have saved you half the time and likely the money in commute to get there.
teehee…i hope nobody actually thinks i’m the moderator. i don’t want people to think i’m cunty^^
I’m curious zZz, since the OP stated they called ahead to verify that the item was in stock, what other kind of research should they have employed before setting out to the store?
lol, I like the sound of that….cunty!
Yes, I think I’ll find ways to use this new word….
many items look alike…
call a telus store and ask if they have an LG phone (item and brand….)
but not THE phone you’re looking for.
I would akin this to calling my fav electronics store out in burnside and asking for a capacitor.
there are tons of them, different watage, microfarads…
now if they went on the net (which they seem to have) and look up the specific model id….there can be NO confusion, unless the box they have in stock is surprisingly empty.
ie, NOT “hi, I’m calling to see if you have a samsung tv there?”
but “hi, I’m calling to see if you have samsung tv PN50B860 in stock?”
I think it still could be a complete cretin behind the counter just trying to push people off the phone, but I tend to do as much due diligence prior to calling. hey, that’s just me.
haha…..is this the same company that gives out c-tire money?
What if the item was a one of a kind food item that is only made by one company only that has no specific model number? What if this item was clearly described during the telephone inquiry so there could be no mistaking what the product was? With no model number what else is one supposed to do?
get there faster before it sold out or ask they set it aside….
I suppose.
what if it was a one-of-a-kind electric donkey flying tangerine mobile that runs on rainbows and emits hershey kisses…
THEN THEY’RE SHIT OUTTA LUCK
The item was did not sell out. It was not currently in stock. Period. Hey, didn’t I buy one of those donkeys at that lovely Freakish candy store last year? Musta got the last one!
curse you…. I had almost saved up enough before it was gone!
and something tells me they would know if a one-of-a-kind food item, unique as that, were in stock or not.
again, if this were the case then yes, and injustice has occurred and they got the shit-stick shoved in their face….
generally, were it a common place item and had they been descriptive down to every last detail they could find about it… they might have saved them self the trip.
my o my, that sounds like the crappy tire stores. call, waste your time, and go, waste more time, and no, not in stock. even though you were told it was, by the dozen. it happens allthe time, what the fuck are the sku numbers for then?
Future Shop did this to me…I paid for an item online to pickup at the Mic Mac Mall location. When I got there they held the wrong item for me….It was a similar item but the wrong item. The one I wanted was out of stock.
I live on Caldwell Road and took a damn bus all the way out there to pick it up as well. This was the reason why I paid for it online so I wasn’t going to waste my time on the Metro…..UG
Even in this age of the Fancy Fancy INTERNET.COM these things still happen.
Guess you did a shitty job of describing it then. That’s a 5 minute phone conversation the employee won’t get back not to mention the attitude they probably had to put up with when you showed up at the store and everyone realized you had screwed up.
Temper tantrums are not necessary to resolving an issue between mature adults. They certainly aren’t going to magically produce what the misled shopper is looking for so I personally prefer to just move on to Plan B which involves checking other options, not venting on strangers in stores.
I guess EI was at the store with the OP since the assumption of a temper tantrum would be presumptuous.
it wasn’t there because i bought the last one.
i’m a spiteful coaster.
new rule ‘don’t vent on strangers in stores’…thanks ol
It’s not a rule. It’s a personal choice. Lest I be mistaken for an immature child instead of mature adult. Others are free to govern themselves as they see fit, tantrums included.
“‘don’t vent on strangers in stores'”
If the lack of the item is the fault of the store’s computer…showing the item as in stock, but it turns out not to be there…damn right you need to express your displeasure.
In fact, when a store does something negligent to waste my valuable time…I consider it my civic duty to spread a taste of my anger to the frontline staff…not in an overly loud way, but you can’t just walk away, hat in hand, mumbling to yourself and holding it in until you get home and have a chance to boot the cat…
…”vent” is called vent for a reason. If a steam engine didn’t have the whistle to vent, the boiler would explode.
It’s important to spread just a little grief to the frontline staff, after all it’s unlikely that we’ll have a chance to run into the CEO in the near future. That way, at the next staff meeting, when the manager asks ‘what can we do to improve your life?” the front staffer will say, “gee, if you improved your stockkeeping/service/policies etc, I wouldn’t have to get so much grief in MY job…”
Sorry sales folks…you’re the first line of defense for your company, and all you can do is to be sure to pass on the misery until your bosses fix things for next time, so I have a better customer experience!
Oceanlady: I never said she had a “temper tantrum” I said that she probably had a poor attitude which, given the fact that she is obviously po’d about it is less of an assumtion than an educated guess based on the evidence.
the OP described something that did not in fact exclusively match the item she wanted, otherwise the clerk could not have been “referring to a completely different item”. The fault is not the clerks but the interpretation of the description.
It’s like the game that kids play when one person describes while the other draws…one may describe a snowman while the other draws a bullseye because the description was not accurate enough to indicate the desired intent.
This could have been avoided by having a sku like someone already suggested, by using a picture as reference which could have been forwarded by e-mail (I have done this…easy stuff) or by going to the store and looking for the item, knowing that it may or may not be there.
I realize that it may have been some time out of the OP’s way but stand by my statement that if she had properly described the item it could have been avoided.