Unacceptable customer service

Dear Editor,

Common sense would tell you that one of the biggest stores in town would have a department/section to deal with customer complains. 

Unfortunately, that is not the case. 

Customer is king said Dr. Samuelson, Nobel Prize Winner in Economics. Business progresses and grows if and when they treat their customers right. 

By not doing so, the public perception of the business is not the best as expected by the owners. Employees must be trained to deal with the customer in the right way; because through them and their right business behavior the money will roll into the company’s coffers.

For example, an employee at Starbucks did not like the looks of a potential customer, who did not order coffee right away and wanted to use the bathroom. The police were called in order for the customer to vacate the company’s premises. Changing policies about that incident did not help matters. Now, the company is closing 150 stores nationwide. Why? Because the public do not want to do business with them.

Coming to my point. I have two printers and as such use black and white and color ink cartridges. I write, translate and do consulting work. Therefore, printing a lot of documents is part of my job at home.  Due to the greater yield in the XL type of ink, I prefer that. One big store was one of my favorite places to buy ink in the last 14 years. But that has now stopped. Why? 

I expected and was greatly disappointed one of my XL cartridges – out of the advertised 300 prints – gave me only 30 copies! I went to the store to complain and get some justice. After all I paid WST 99.00 for that cartridge.

An untrained employee attended to me. Don’t you think his opening words would be ‘may I help you Sir’? I understand you have a complaint about our ink which you bought from us the other day. Oh no! nothing of that nature. 

Standing up, in a busy and crowded place I made an effort to show him my displeasure.

My evidence is only 30 pages were printed out of the promised 300. After discussing this with someone, a new cartridge was given to me. I put that to work and you know what? The brand new Black cartridge printed 24 pages.

Back to the store. Only this time the same employee who attended to me previously was not too happy to see me again. Who wouldn’t?

My objection to an unfulfilled promise did not matter to him. He probably does not know anything about the rights of the customer. His solution was for me to complain directly to the Company headquarters in the US or elsewhere. No rational explanation as to why this happened. Perhaps he did not know much about the products he was selling and passed the buck. 

The store does not have anything to do with it. Is that correct? Forget about apologies or my money back – they sold me very defective ink.

My law book says a buy or sell is a contract. This product has a limited warranty (20/9/11/29). The company lawyers know that there is no caveat emptor in this contract. The store, in no instance, has shown signs of goodwill by letting me return the product, get a refund or at least accept responsibility. 

I have definitely been deceived by the store. Need some answers from them. I want to be a satisfied customer. Is that the way to treat a customer?

One of the owners just recently said: “Our service does not end when the sale is made, our service goes beyond that simply because we care about our customers and their investment.” 

But is that so! 

Not in my case.

And to add insult to injury, my car was locked in the parking lot and they did not allow me to get out for 30 minutes. The parking lot attendant was no where to be seen. It was a nice man who maneuvered my car in that tight spot so I could go home disappointed and cheated. 

No ink and no WST99.00 refunded. 

It is the quality of service that makes a company great. Nothing else! No satisfied customers, no money. Would the company make an effort and hire customer friendly employees? 

 

Orlando Huaman. 

An unhappy customer. Malololelei. 

Samoa Observer

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