Customer Service Kudos

When last I blogged about Lowe's, I was pretty irritated at my neighborhood store. After I blogged, I used the "contact us" form at Lowes.com to report my problem. Within a couple of days, I got a call from a manager at the local store wanting to try to figure out who the women were that gave me the problem. She looked up my cousin's name and printed out their gift registry, and she left that and a 10% off voucher at the customer service desk. I went in the next day, picked out a light fixture from the list and used the discount. The quick response and the discount went a long way to making me feel better about the store.

Then today, we had a message from PetSmart. We'd been in a couple of times over the last week or 10 days, only to find a big empty space where the Iams Digestive Care 16.5 pound bag should be. I sent an e-mail to Iams, to see if they discontinued the size, and they confirmed that they still make it. I also sent an email to PetSmart, to ask if they were still going to stock that size in the store, because the shipping charges on a heavy bag of cat food are pretty outrageous. Well, the message today said that the food had been ordered and to call the manager when I had a chance. She was very apologetic that they'd been out of stock, assured me that the food had been ordered on Monday and should be in by next Wednesday. She sounded very sincere when she said how sorry she was that the store had run out. So, I'm feeling pretty good about PetSmart, too.

A great classic of 20th century cinema....

Some movies are worth paying $20 for on DVD. Others I wouldn't buy for $20, but when I find them in the five dollar bin at Wal-mart, they're a must have. So it is with Smokey and the Bandit, the fun-lovin', free-wheelin' story of rebellion on the open road. When I saw the title, I thought surely it must be Smokey and the Bandit 2 or perhaps Smokey and the Bandit 3: Smokey is the Bandit. But no, it was the 1977 original, the first movie that made me think that it would be cool to jump a car over something (a goal I still hope to attain someday). You know what went wrong with Smokey and the Bandit 2, at least for me? It was that it didn't fulfill the promise delivered at the end of the first movie. The fellers (including Sally Field and Fred the basset hound) were headed to New England to bring back some lobsters. Instead of doing that story, though, they brought in the elephant and it was all downhill from there. The less said about Smokey and the Bandit 3: Smokey is the Bandit, the better.

Why are stores so stupid?

Or maybe I should say, why do they hire stupid, lazy people to work there? Or maybe the people weren't as stupid as they acted, and they really weren't given the proper tools to help the customer.

My story:

We stopped at Lowe's tonight and we decided to ask about my cousin's gift registry. I looked at it a couple of days ago at Lowes.com, but I'm out of ink. I thought the store could print it for me.

Well, first the dumb girls behind the counter discussed the ending of the registry program and how they thought it was already over. They finally figured out that I was right, and the program is still alive. Then they looked up my cousin's name on one of the registers and found the listing, but they couldn't print it. So, they go back to the desktop and ask me for my cousin's phone number. I don't have her phone number. So I say, "I don't have her phone number. I looked it up online under her name." Then the lady smarts off at me, saying, "Well our system is different than the website." So, get online, bitch. I didn't say that. I just said that we'd have to buy them something somewhere else, and we left. I know they have a garden hose on their wish list, so I'll just look up the specs and buy one someplace else. From the very beginning with those chicks, it was like I was interrupting them, and they just didn't want to help me. That's the attitude I got, anyway. In this economy, they ought to have been falling all over themselves to try to make a sale and keep the customer happy.

But on to more pleasant topics, like the chance to win a 8GB iPod Shuffle. It's a promotion over at Debt Relief Place. It's a company that's in the business of helping people get their debt under control. They also have a handy debt calculator. Check it out and enter to win!