- Joined
- Jan 13, 2019
- Messages
- 272
- Reaction score
- 385
- Location
- Timberlake, NC
- What state or country do you live in
- North Carolina
Hypothetical story:
OK, so let's say I need a gallon of blue paint, I go to a hardware store and buy a gallon of blue paint. When I get home, I open it up and it's red paint. I call up the hardware store, get the manager on the phone and tell him what happened. He argues the point with me, wants to know why I'm unhappy. He states that the value of a gallon of paint is the same. Asks if I felt cheated!?
Real story:
I visit a reef aquarium store while I'm out of town, (an area I'm in frequently) seemingly a reputable store. I pick out and pay for 3 sps corals and ask them to hold them for me until I leave the following day. No worries. So the next day I come back, they bag 'em up for me and I head home, a 3 plus hour drive. I get home and start unbagging things only to find that 1 of the 3 isn't what I had paid for. I had picked out a +/- 3/4" frag (I'll add that it had a single point only because it becomes an issue in a few more sentences) of a particular named acro but received a 1/2" frag of a different named acro (two points), one that I already have a decent sized colony of. I pm'd the owner/manager on their facebook page and told them about the mix up. His first response was "it wasn't intentional, we'll make it right." He asked for as picture which I provided. Here's where things went south. His next reply to me was, "well if you were to take the 1/2" frag, stack the 2 points, it would be about the same length as the one with one point so it had the same value". Wanted to know "if I felt cheated"?!?!?! No reference at all as to whether or not it was something I even wanted. REALLY, IS IT JUST ME!??!?!?
It was obvious to me at this point that I was wasting my time with this guy. Replied to him, "let's call it a wash." Lesson learned, he won't have to worry about me casting a shadow it the door of his store again.
My point of sharing my experience is this.........with all the stores we have to choose from (brick and mortar and online) and with prices and merchandise pretty much the same across the board, the ONLY thing that separates one from the next is CUSTOMER SERVICE!!! If this guy had just said "what will it take to make you feel right about your purchase", we may have actually ended up at the same resolution but without the hard feelings. (I don't call out the name of the store here because it's not my intention to make him a singular target of my gripe.) I've had a similar experience with one of the big online aquarium supply stores. Had one of their reps (I intentionally didn't use the term "customer service people") argue with me heatedly about a shipment THEY messed up. I don't use them anymore either. There are too many stores with GREAT customer service out there for me to use my dollars to support the ones that suck!!
Read this somewhere and I'll attempt to paraphrase here:
Business spends millions of dollars every year on advertising to try to get me in the door. Fact is, I was there to start with. A little quality customer service is ALL it would have taken to keep me coming back.
Whewwwww........vented.
OK, so let's say I need a gallon of blue paint, I go to a hardware store and buy a gallon of blue paint. When I get home, I open it up and it's red paint. I call up the hardware store, get the manager on the phone and tell him what happened. He argues the point with me, wants to know why I'm unhappy. He states that the value of a gallon of paint is the same. Asks if I felt cheated!?
Real story:
I visit a reef aquarium store while I'm out of town, (an area I'm in frequently) seemingly a reputable store. I pick out and pay for 3 sps corals and ask them to hold them for me until I leave the following day. No worries. So the next day I come back, they bag 'em up for me and I head home, a 3 plus hour drive. I get home and start unbagging things only to find that 1 of the 3 isn't what I had paid for. I had picked out a +/- 3/4" frag (I'll add that it had a single point only because it becomes an issue in a few more sentences) of a particular named acro but received a 1/2" frag of a different named acro (two points), one that I already have a decent sized colony of. I pm'd the owner/manager on their facebook page and told them about the mix up. His first response was "it wasn't intentional, we'll make it right." He asked for as picture which I provided. Here's where things went south. His next reply to me was, "well if you were to take the 1/2" frag, stack the 2 points, it would be about the same length as the one with one point so it had the same value". Wanted to know "if I felt cheated"?!?!?! No reference at all as to whether or not it was something I even wanted. REALLY, IS IT JUST ME!??!?!?
It was obvious to me at this point that I was wasting my time with this guy. Replied to him, "let's call it a wash." Lesson learned, he won't have to worry about me casting a shadow it the door of his store again.
My point of sharing my experience is this.........with all the stores we have to choose from (brick and mortar and online) and with prices and merchandise pretty much the same across the board, the ONLY thing that separates one from the next is CUSTOMER SERVICE!!! If this guy had just said "what will it take to make you feel right about your purchase", we may have actually ended up at the same resolution but without the hard feelings. (I don't call out the name of the store here because it's not my intention to make him a singular target of my gripe.) I've had a similar experience with one of the big online aquarium supply stores. Had one of their reps (I intentionally didn't use the term "customer service people") argue with me heatedly about a shipment THEY messed up. I don't use them anymore either. There are too many stores with GREAT customer service out there for me to use my dollars to support the ones that suck!!
Read this somewhere and I'll attempt to paraphrase here:
Business spends millions of dollars every year on advertising to try to get me in the door. Fact is, I was there to start with. A little quality customer service is ALL it would have taken to keep me coming back.
Whewwwww........vented.
