Customer Service

Lately, I’ve had several situations that have given others the opportunity to demonstrate or not demonstrate excellence in customer service.  First, I will layout what happened and then I will tell the solution or non-solution.

1. Someone fraudulently charged on credit card through Amazon.com.  I have a Kindle and OFTEN purchase books through Amazon.   I called them, they said they couldn’t do anything for me but they suspended my account and now I cannot buy books for my Kindle….

2. Our family purchased us a new refrigerator for our new house from Lowe’s.  Lowe’s delivered and installed the new refrigerator but water dispenser on the front of the fridge didn’t work.  I do not know why the installer didn’t check it but I couldn’t get it to work.  I called Lowe’s not once but three times about the situation.

3. Because my husband works at Grande Communications (everyone living in Shadow Creek/Buda area or San Marcos…call for your cable/internet/phone and be sure to ask for Dennis), we receive cable, high-speed internet (fiber-to-the-home) and phone services free as a part of his employee compensation package.  Last week after the thunderstorms our internet was down.

4. I was shopping at Walgreens in Buda and there were some guys cleaning the floor.   They were sweeping and then waxing with a waxing machine.  It was only 8pm and there were many people shopping.  The guy started waxing on the aisle I was shopping on and he didn’t bother to even let me get out of the way.  He took his waxing machine right by me brushing my ankle.  Then every aisle I went down, he started sweeping that aisle.  Until I finally asked him if he was following me and then said, “Seriously?”  I was so annoyed that I contacted Walgreens and told them about it.  (Also the same guy and another guy were joking around and made a derogatory comment which I can’t remember but I thought, “People really shouldn’t talk about things like that at work or in front of customers”.  Isn’t anything sacred anymore?).

So far, here is what has been done…

1. After contacting Amazon like 3 times, I have to set-up a whole new Kindle account and will loose all the books I’ve purchased and all my other downloads.  VISA, who I contacted through my bank, refunded the money but Amazon said they wouldn’t refund anything and they did not seem all that concerned that people are out there making fraudulent charges.  I wasn’t too happy with their attitude.  I was pretty upset about the whole thing. They did send me a giftcard so I can re-purchase all my books and a list of all the books I had installed.  Of course, who is going to repay me for all the time it takes to do all that downloading.

2.  The refrigerator…well, my dad ended up fixing it for me and I am not so sure that I will be purchasing future appliances at Lowe’s.  I did contact them to tell them about their poor customer service and they emailed me days later.  It’s a good think I wasn’t waiting for them to “fix” the fridge.   They still haven’t followed up.

3. Our internet.  So Grande Customer Service ROCKS.  Seriously, they sent a service technician out on a Saturday to fix our internet; same day service.  They were nice, professional, didn’t treat me like I was stupid (which Time Warner often did…by the time I call the internet provider, I have done everything – like rebooting the modem, etc.) Yep, I LOVE Grande!

4. Walgreens…well, the manager of the store did call me and I told him the situation and he apologized and said that he was going speak to the owner of the contracting company who cleaned the floors….

Let’s bring back excellent customer service!