I’m tired of hearing businesses whining that business is tough, the economy is rough, government is giving them the shouf… whine whine whine.
WHEN A POTENTIAL CUSTOMER CALLS ASKING ABOUT YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICES CALL THEM BACK!
What is it with places around here? You can call and email them until your blue in the face: nothing. Or, my favorite is when you do get through and you require them to come to your house to spec out the job. You take the day off from work, and guess what they don’t show up. You call an hour later and they tell you their on the way. End of day no sign. My neighbor right now has been three weeks trying to get a services company to call him back. If you’re busy, at least call the man back, tell him when you can attend to him so he at least knows where he stand.
My solution: Where possible I buy from Newfoundland, Ontario and USA suppliers, often via the Internet. My money is singing “farewell to Nova Scotia”!!
Frig this place is backwards. —Service Sucks
This article appears in May 27 – Jun 2, 2010.
Whatever happened to customers going into a store? Wow, what a crazy fucking concept, eh?
Customers are far too entitled nowadays.
yeah, that really pisses me off too. especially when you have to have an urgent reply. government offices are famous for that non call back shit. take your business someplace else, fuck them all.
Sometimes, it’s just not worth driving for hours (or taking a bus for hours) to ask one question, DrFever.
How about when you ask a question through a Big Box electronic store’s website…and you get told that they can’t handle that sort of question (if a specific cable could be used with a specific DVD machine). The website has multiple contacts, one for general, one for tech, one webform…and all of them give the same answer, albeit worded differently. “Go to your local store”. Great, the item was ordered from them online because there is ONE local store for the province (at the time, there was one local store for all of Atlantic Canada) and going to the “local store” wasn’t an option.
Why have tech support/email contacts on your website if you don’t have anyone that can actually answer the questions?
RaphEmer— it’s never that simple though. Chances are, if they have to call you back, it’s not a question relating to whether HDMI cable fits into your DVD player.
Also, you don’t necessarily have to go through the store to get that sort of question answered. If you go to the store’s website, you typically have everything right at your fingertips, specs, connection types, so on and so forth. So, if you can read, you can answer your own question. Hell, most tech support questions can be answered by a Q&A forum board. Type your bleeding question into Google. You’ll get something back, even if it isn’t from the website in question.
Face it: the retailer doesn’t care if you have questions by phone/email. Typically, the people that field such questions are dealing with customers that are already in the store making sales, or fixing problems that people have brought in. If the customer wants basement level prices, the customer gets it. But the customer also has to accept that they get basement level customer service as well.
Customer service reps. don’t make enough money to give a shit, and if they do give a shit making that little money they are stupid and can’t help you anyway. SAY LA VEE
If they’re not prepared to give customer service, then they shouldn’t claim to supply customer service. If I’m expected to find the info myself, that’s fine, tell me that on the webpage, rather than setting it up so that it looks like they’re all ready and happy to help when they’re unable to even instruct you in how to flip a light switch off & on.
I called 5 different places in one afternoon to ask for quotes on some contracting work I needed done.
One place called within 2 days, another called within 4 days, and another called more than 7 days later. None of the rest of them even bothered to call back. Annoying as fuck.
You said it in your first sentence, OP. Businesses are losing money because of the economy, so they have to cut back on employees, meaning there are lots of people expected to do the work of 2 people and then some. I had this issue when I worked at a large chain drug store and it fucking killed me. One night I was the manager/supervisor/first-call cashier. Fun times.
Valid bitch. I have had similar experiences in Halifax shops. Now I do most of the shopping online, and I’d say 70% of it comes from the USA (and no, I don’t end up paying duty). Businesses locally need to get with the program.
What exactly do you order from Newfoundland? I really want to find a reliable way to get my favorite Newfoundland beers sent here regularly! I’d kill for some India Beer, Black Horse, Blue Star, Dominion Ale, Jockey Club, Quidi Vidi, O’Keefes… etc