Customer Service.

I just read an interesting story on a friend of mine's blog about the state of customer service, and how, with such an abundance of jobs available, customer service is not of the calibre it used to be. Basically, jobs are a dime a dozen and employees can pretty much pick and choose where they want to work. This is from a friend who lives in a large city, but even here in Cranbrook we are having the same troubles.

My biggest "peeve" is the Real Canadian Superstore and I won't even begin to tell my tales of woe from there, although the latest was the Mandarin Orange Episode (Hmm, sounds like a Robert Ludlum book) And as a matter of fact, I WILL tell that story: We bought a box of oranges, and they seal them up nowadays so that you can't possibly tell how many are in a box, or how many moldy ones there are. And we ALL know about moldy Mandarins. So you sniff the openings in the box, hoping to NOT get a whiff of mold (mould?) All these folks standing there, sniffing boxes of oranges....it's like a gang of street kids sniffing glue. Anyhow, I sniffed to my satisfaction and nary a scent of off-orange so I happily took my treasure home and opened it only to find seven revolting oranges. One was so green and hairy that I thought perhaps it was beginning to move, one was just "mooshy" and brown and the other 5 were a combination of mold, "moosh" and other assorted icky problems. ***sigh***

I made Steven pick out the 7 bad ones and wash the others (ewww, cross contamination!) and I took the box and the 7 bad ones back. I was very polite (really, I really was) and when the woman at the service desk looked at me crossly (I had interrupted her personal conversation with her co-worker) I said, trying to be humerous as I help up the box: "I bet you can guess why I'm here!" She looked blankly at me, so I sighed inwardly and explained about my 7 bad oranges. And she said: "So? What do you want? Seven new oranges?" in a most sarcastic way. I said: "Actually, yes I do. Should I get them from bulk and bring them to you?" She nodded, so I got my seven and showed them to her and headed on my way. But I have to tell you, I put EIGHT in the bag. My small way of getting a bit of revenge for yet another Real Superstore Mis-adventure.

Oh, but the purpose of this post was to tell of 2 small companies that provided excellent service to us recently, and moreso, it was sight unseen.

Steven bought one of those "soaker hoses" last year (Sept 2005) at the (gee..guess where?) Real Canadian Superstore. It was an after summer clearance sale and I think we paid $12.00 or so, I believe it was 70% off. Anyhow, it was put away until this summer of 2006 and he used it 2 or 3 times when all of a sudden the tiny holes where the water was supposed to slowly "ooze" out of, seemed to open up and water was spurting out like mini geysers, shooting in all sorts of directions. The material was obviously old. So he took it back to the Superstore, needless to say it was a wasted trip and I won't even go into the details. (He still had the receipt and the wrapping that the hose came in, he saves EVERYTHING and I get so annoyed, but it was certainly a good thing that he did) (His shed that he keeps all this stuff in will be an archeologists delight some year, some post-apocolyptic professor will be able to weed through the layers of receipts and learn how Man in 2006 lived) Anyhow, he saw the 1-800 number on the hose wrapping and phoned it, with me chattering in the background saying things like: "It's a US number, it's over a year old, blah, blah...waste of time..." and after he talked to a woman, she took our address and Fed-Exed us a brand new hose...better and longer than the other one, since the other one was an old model that they don't make anymore. Now how is THAT for good service from a small comapny?

Then, story #2, we put a new range hood in above our stove a few months ago, bought it at Canadian Tire, and the otehr day the light wouldn't work. It wasn't the bulb, it was something in the switch that was broken. So, Steven phoned Canadian Tire and got the usual runaround, we didn't have the receipt in this case, but they were less then helpful in even finding a replacement switch (that Steven had fully expected to pay for and replace himself) So, he Googled the range hood company and phoned their 1-800 #, barely got the story out of his mouth when the fellow asked him his address and said he'd have a replacement switch on the way to us ASAP, no charge. That company was Broan, in case you are thinking of buying any range things.

So there is hope yet, not a lot, but there are still a few folks out there who pride themselves on their work and stand behind their product.