DavidGervino.com

Poor Customer Service at Sears

So I went to Sears the other day.  I had ordered a battery for my Honda CBR.  An entire month had passed and the battery still hadn't arrived.  I had called the store several times and I was always told that the battery was going to arrive "very soon." After waiting 31 days I decided it was time to get my money back.  I went to the store and showed the clerk my paperwork, which showed that I had paid a 100% deposit (Almost $200) in cash.  I was told that I would have to pay a "re-stocking fee" in order to have my money refunded.  Restocking fee!? Were they serious??? How can I be charged a re-stocking fee for something that was never stocked in the first place!?

I politely explained how I had paid them a cash deposit based on the fact that they told me the battery would arrive within 5 days.  After waiting 6 times longer than their original promise date, I didn't think it was unreasonable to request a refund.  And in Chicago, it's always so cold that you only get about 3 months of good riding weather each year anyway.  I had spent 1/3 of this time waiting for my battery.  The store manager wound up being called and he told me that he didn't think there was any way to override the system and refund my deposit without withholding this ominous "restocking fee." Who was this guy kidding? Did he really expect me to believe that he is responsible for over a million dollars in inventory but he is not empowered to make a $20 decision? After much arguing, he finally gave in and gave me a full refund.  He acted as though he was doing me a favor by "bending the rules" this time. 

Dick's Sporting Goods

So I went to Dick's Sporting Goods yesterday with a friend of mine who was in search of a new duffel bag.  The people there are so incredibly helpful.  One of their employees spent a significant amount of time with us, going over the various bags they have, which ones he particularly liked, which ones are small enough use as carry-on luggage, etc.

I LOVE good customer service.  I told the guy that I'm going to go and get in shape now, just so that I have a reason to give them additional business....

To everything there is a season....

.... And the season of dealing with Nextel technical support issues is over!

I finally ditched my Nextel Blackberry and got the Blackberry Pearl (Pictured on left) from Verizon.  I've used several different Blackberries with my Nextel account but I kept having problems when it came to sending & receiving email, as well as calls dropping.  It would be frustrating to send an email, see a "check-mark," as if the email had gone through, and then have my phone beep the next day, showing me a "red 'X'" to let me know that the message, in fact, hadn't gone through....

As is typical of me when I get some new gadget, I stayed up all night and fumbled around with the different options and settings on the new phone.  Thus far, it seems to be a great phone.  I'm surprised to see that the battery-life seems to be fairly good, especially considering the bright back-lit display. 

Additionally, I've been thrilled by Verizon's customer service.  The guy at the store, as well as the lady I spoke to at their tech support desk were both extremely helpful and knowledgeable.  I hate when I call a place for tech support and find that I seem to know more about their product than they do.  It would be nice if their tech support were open 24-hours, as I'm a night-owl and generally like to call into help-lines when things are slow, and they don't have a lot of calls holding.  Actually though, I got through relatively fast when I called Verizon during the day.

My new coat

I went to Dick's Sporting Goods last night and got a winter jacket made by The North Face.  I love it! At this point, I don't care if Columbia loses my jacket and never sends it back (See previous post regarding my Columbia jacket).  This coat feels "lighter" than my Columbia coat but it seems to keep me just as warm.  And, in true Dick's Sporting Goods fashion, they provided me with great customer service.  They even dug through their stockroom to find an empty box so that I could ship my Columbia coat back to the warranty people at Columbia Sportswear.

Sprint Mobile Broadband Card

I won a 60-day free trial of Sprint's mobile broadband service.  I was given the choice of several different cards.  I opted for the Merlin S720 by Novatel Wireless.  Interestingly enough, the cards range in price from free to just over $200.  As long as you get a card that supports the "EV-DO Rev A" speed, you won't really notice much difference.  The card that I got is GPS enabled but it doesn't help with point-to-point directions.  The GPS can only be used to find the nearest hotels, restaurants, etc.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how great this technology works.  I think I was skeptical because my only experience with wireless data from a cell phone company had been when I used to hook up my laptop to my cell phone.  Using a cell phone as a modem was painfully slow; even slower than dial-up.  This wireless card is awesome! I've used it on the train, at restaurants that don't have Wi-Fi and, most recently, I used it a few times at one of our satellite offices when our network went down.  It was nice to be able to just pop the card in and continue working whereas everyone else had to sit and wait until the network came back on-line.

$50 per month for the service isn't too bad, especially since you can cancel your home ISP.  The speeds I'm getting with the Sprint card are fast enough that I don't think I'd miss my 6mbps cable modem.

I should also point out how impressed I have been so far with Sprint.  In the post below, I discussed how after my Nextel phone was stolen, I switched to Sprint.  I haven't had a problem with dropped calls or no signal since I switched.  What really impresses me though is their customer service.  Though Sprint and Nextel have combined, they are still on separate networks and they have different technical support groups.  The people I talk to at Sprint seem to really know what's going on and they've taken great care of me.  I even sent an email to them with a technical question and the guy who responded gave me his direct email address in case I had further issues.  That kind of personalized service and accountability is something I don't see too much these days. 

Great Customer Service

                                                                                                                                                      

My family is frugal -- sometimes to a fault.  We're the kind of family that will spend $5 in gas to drive across town just so we can take advantage of a sale and save 25 cents off a 2-liter bottle of Coke.  I'm no mathematician but I don't think you actually save money when you do stuff like that.

Nevertheless, in keeping with tradition, I decided to compare the price of the exact same tennis racket at Dick's Sporting Goods to one at Wal-Mart.  Whenever I go to the Wal-Mart near my house, it's always an adventure -- The lines are horrendous and it is rare that I'm able to find or speak to an employee who understands English or Spanish.  But Wal-Mart's price for the tennis racket was approximately a dollar less than Dick's, so I bought the racket from them.   

Fast forward a few weeks to today....  I have this dilemma involving a set of golf clubs.  I've never learned to play because I'm left-handed and until recently, none of my right-handed, golf-playing friends had the patience to teach me.  Just when I was about to give up on learning to play, Tim gave me a set of left-handed golf clubs that used to belong to a friend of his. 

I've got a trip coming up to see my brother in Missouri and he's going to hook me up with a bag for my new set of clubs.  He's also going to give me a few lessons.  So the problem was trying to figure out how to get the clubs up to Missouri without a bag and then how to return to Chicago with the clubs AND the bag.  I checked a bunch of package-supply places but no place seemed to have the right kind of box.  It didn't seem worth it to spend a lot of money on a travel bag for the clubs since I'm probably not going be taking them on a plane very often.  At $100, a round-trip ticket on Southwest Airlines was cheaper and more convenient than it would be to drive my Jeep 6 hours each way.  So I was left with trying to decide between driving up to Missouri instead of taking a plane or possibly forgetting the whole idea of bring my clubs up there to begin with. 

As a last ditch effort, I went into Dick's Sporting Goods to see if someone there would be able to give me ideas of how to transport the clubs without purchasing one of their expensive travel bags.  The guy I spoke to bent over backwards to take care of me.  He wound up searching all over the stockroom for several minutes.  He then came back and gave me a carton that was used by one of their vendors to ship some golf clubs to the store. 

So what's the point of my long-winded post? I LOVE doing business with places that provide great customer service.  So next time I need to buy something sold in a sporting goods store, you can bet I'll pay the extra dollar and buy it from Dick's.

Great customer service at Target

Anyone who knows me well knows that I expect a lot when it comes to customer service. Since I provide my customers with an extremely high level of service, I expect to be treated the same when I am a customer somewhere. Having these high expectations normally means that I am let down during various interactions with different businesses. For whatever reason, it seems as though customer service has fallen by the wayside at most places. If you ask for help, many employees will look at you as though you're really putting them out by expecting them to do their job and assist you....

I was delighted to experience an exception to this saddening trend the other day when I was shopping at Target in Bloomingdale, Illinois (On Army Trail Road). Janette (sp.) was the cashier who rang me up. Not only did she smile and greet me, she was extremely pleasant and I could tell that she went out of her way to take care of me. I guess the fact that this stood out shows how poor most places are doing when it comes to customer service. But nevertheless, I appreciate the fact that there are still people out there like Janette who take pride in their job and taking care of their customers.

It is amazing how a warm smile and a few kind words from a stranger can totally change the course of a person's day....