Dec
26

I have no control over your shipping

A client orders an item on December 14th and it ships on the 15th of December. The client is located on the east coast and we are shipping from the west coast. We upgraded their shipping from standard shipping to priority shipping for free. The client calls me on the 23rd of December and says they didn’t receive it yet so I check the tracking on it. The tracking says it is on route from the sorting facility which is located on the west coast. There have been no updates to the tracking since the 15th. It would be nice if USPS would update a little more often. This would help them to have fewer phone calls and complaints. I called USPS and went through their phone system. I tried to get a live person and hit 00, but the recorded message basically said they don’t take customer service calls this time of year. 1-800-ASK-USPS is their number if anyone needs it. The client is upset because they needed it by Christmas and they want to know what I will do about it. I was extremely nice about it, but I don’t have any control over the shipping process. Sometimes shipping takes longer than expected this time of year. This happens almost every year. I requested that the customer be patient and I haven’t hard from him again. So we will see what happens. I will check tracking over the next few days and hopefully he will receive it. Has this ever happened to you?

Sep
25

Customer buys from store then goes shopping on the internet

A customer comes into the store and drops off his computer to be worked on because it is dead. We look at the computer and determine that the video card is toast and that the system has viruses/spyware on it. We call the customer and give him the diagnostic and he says go ahead and do the work and install a new video card. We get the work done and he picks it up and takes it home, but it doesn’t work on his dual monitor setup because it doesn’t have the right connections. The customer needs 2 DVI connections and the card in the system that we sold him only has one. He wonders what else we can get for him.

We call him back after researching video cards that will have the outputs that he needs. We call him back and tell him all about the video card and we quote him a price. He says that sounds good, go ahead and order it. We order the card.

The customer calls back within an hour and says that he found the card cheaper on the internet and wonders what we can do for him. The service manager comes and talks to me about it and I am a little bit ticked because we spent time and money on purchasing a new card for the customer. We tell the customer that we can pull the card and refund him the money. The customer then asks if he can get the install labor back and can we let him borrow the card until his new video card comes in. I lose my mind at this point, although I don’t let the customer know that. I tell him that we didn’t charge him labor to install the card, we only charged him labor to fix the viruses/spyware. We basically install the card for free because he is buying the card from us. We also tell him that he needs to bring the computer back today so that we can uninstall the video card. He isn’t happy with that, but agrees to bring in the computer. Within an hour or so he brings the computer back and we uninstall the video card and refund on the video card. We give him back his old video card that is dead. I would be willing to bet that he will try and get the old video card to work in his computer while he waits for his other video card to show up even though we told him it is dead. (which it is)

I can’t believe that people will tell you that they want you to special order something, then they go shopping for the same item. I wonder how I can take care of this in the future. I can have someone pay in advance for special orders. (This puts them out because they have to make a special trip to make the payment) Or, I can wait 24 hours knowing that they might change their minds. Or, I can tell them up front that special orders are final and they are no refunds. Any one of these options puts a burden on the customer. I can’t win mo matter what I do.

What do you think?

Aug
11

Dumpster Divers Leave Trash Outside The Dumpster

I work for a computer company and we have a dumpster out back of the office. We throw stuff away and put it inside the dumpster. People come by and rummage through the dumpster which I don’t mind, but they leave the trash outside the dumpster on the ground when they are finished. Why can’t they put the trash back into the dumpster when they are finished? I have to clean it up at least once per week. The other problem is that we throw stuff into the dumpster. One day there was actually someone in the dumpster and we almost clocked them in the head because we assumed there wasn’t anyone in there. It is almost to the point where I will have to put a lock on the dumpster so that I don’t have to clean up after the dumpster divers. Has this ever happened to you?

Feb
21

Crazy Customer and a Printer

crazy

A long time customer comes into the store and has us work on her computer system. The system is infected with tons of viruses and spyware. Our only recourse is to do a repair of the operating sytem. We explain to the customer exactly what we are doing and how it will affect them. The customer has us do the work. The customer picks up the computer and takes it home and attempts to plug in their printer. They can’t get it working so they have a neighbor come over and work on their system. They don’t call us, they have someone else work on it. Then the customer calls us up and yells at us because their printer doesn’t work. Keep in mind this is after they have their neighbor worked on the system. We end up helping the customer over the phone to get the printer problem resolved. Turns out that the neighbor made the problem worse. Took us 1/2 hour to get the problem resolved over the phone. Don’t you think it would have been better for the customer to call us first? This kind of stuff drives me crazy.

Jun
13

Breakin at the office

Breakin at the office

A couple of days ago my office was broken into. They literally moved a concrete garbadge can out of the way and drove a pickup truck through the front of my office. They tore out a glass door, large glass windows and the security gates. They setoff the alarm which alerted the alarm company and the the police. I also had a security camera which was attached to the ceiling and it was broken due to the percussion of the blast through the windows. The burglars managed to get away with 10 or so laptops, a few desktops and a bunch of other computer parts. It was defintely a smash and grab. It happened at 1:00am in the morning exactly. The camera picked up the time, and then it died from the blast. The police came out very timely, but the burglars had already left the scene of the crime. The police said that this type of crime is usually later in the early morning hours. I am amazed at the lengths at which people will go to steal stuff. I thought I had pretty good security. Metal gates, alarms and cameras. I called the landlord and requested that they put in concrete pilons up front to prevent this in the future. They agreed and will be doing this soon, I hope. Has something like this happened to you? What are your thoughts?

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