Monday, October 25, 2010

Sucky Service

Ok. Is it me or has service gone waaaaay downhill as of late? 

Last Friday I went to shop at the Banana Republic Factory Outlet Store. While the clothing was beautiful and the store was clean, the service was simply non-existent. Seriously, there was no one there! Not one employee was noticed on the floor helping me or anyone else, there was no one in the change room for the first 3-5 minutes I waited for someone to let me in a room, and there was no one at the cashier when I went to pay so I had to stand and wait for someone to notice me waiting. I would have approached someone if I saw a single person that worked there!!

Then on the weekend we went to try the newly revamped D'lish Wine Bar and though the food was really good, the service was not. Our waiter had no personality, didn't sell us on trying anything on the menu and himself seemed not only unsure of himself but what he was actually doing on this planet. At one point he actually said 'we haven't had too many complaints about that'; so does that mean it's about 50/50 on the complaints? What's 'too many'?  We all agreed at our table we wished we had someone else to serve us as our guy was a dud.

Then today I took DS to Walmart to pick out some items for our upcoming vacation. We picked out a few DVDs, stickers, some paints as well. They only had 3 tills open (not nearly enough for a Walmart...why have 20 odd tills if you are only going to use 3?) and when I was at the till the manager was instructing the cashier to double check the cost of the DVDs as they were pulling at the incorrect prices. She checked all of them and as I was paying she DIDN'T put the bag in the cart (as she had done with all the previous bags) and so I left thinking I had everything when in fact I didn't. I got home and noticed right away the bag was missing so called promptly. I let the phone ring for 2 minutes and 45 seconds and no one answered. Customer Service fail #2 (incorrect prices and failure to put the bag in my cart #1). I waited about 15 minutes and tried again. I finally got someone and when I explained to her what happened she said 'oh yes, we found the bag. You need to come in and reshop all the items and then we'll run them through the till again and give them to you'. I was completely perplexed as it had only been 1 hour since I left the store, why couldn't I just come in and pick up that 1 bag? She said as soon as they find a bag they put all the items back on the shelves.

So, let me get this situation right. They didn't have enough staff to work tills but enough staff to put PAID items back on the shelves??? Were they hoping I didn't call? I wondered how they would know what I actually took home and what was in the bag if they put it all back and she said they documented it in a binder. So, again...you have the time to document it, put the items back, but are not able to just leave the bag intact for someone to come claim it 1 hour after it was purchased?? Is it me or does anyone else how ridiculous this system is??

Anyway, this just adds to a long line of poor service I've experienced of late. I certainly don't feel that the 'customer is always right' anymore. Nor do I even feel that my business is valued and appreciated. What has happened to customer service?? Do people read the customer surveys I fill out?  Please Lord just say that it's not just me that this stuff happens to!

No comments:

Post a Comment