The Sad State of American Brick and Mortar
@ June 13, 2011, 7:25 p.m.
Filed under: Personal Tech Frustration
Over the last year I've been keeping a close eye on Android tablets. It hasn't been until this latest round of releases that I really got interested in making a purchase. It took Monk pointing me at the Asus eee Transformer to finally make a decision. After using Google to see if anyone in the area had stock and finding that no one had any listed I decided to wait for a little bit. After a short bit I was told that one of the local HH Greg's was getting a shipment in on a Monday.
"Great!", I thought, "I can run to the store this coming Monday and buy one!". But then something hit me, I should probably call and make sure that they will have a unit available. I gave the store a ring and to my surprise I was told they had two units in stock right then. One unit was the floor model, the other was a unopened unit. I rushed to my car and got over to the store as fast as I could during my lunch break. I went through the whole purchase process and was ready to get my tablet ... and that is where the disappointment began.
The manager couldn't find a new unit. He said that a shipment was coming Monday if I could wait they would give me a call when it came in. I figured that wasn't a bad wait. I had already paid for it and it was better than calling every hour Monday to try to get one of the units before other geeks did. The guy who did the sale was very apologetic about the mix up saying that he really should have checked the back first. I understood how it happened, but it was still frustrating! The guy I spoke to on the phone said there were two and did not physically check. The guy who then helped me when I walked in talked to the first guy, was told there were two and took him at his word. In any case, that was Friday and I spent the weekend looking forward to getting my new tablet Monday.
Monday came and by noon I was getting antsy. I decided to give the store a call and check up. A guy picked up and said he would look up the purchase. I'm not sure if he thought he put me on hold or not but I then heard him say something similar to the following to another employee some distance away: "Hey! I don't know how to do this. What am I supposed to hit?" I kind of chuckled a bit at that being that one of HH Gregg's selling points as a company is that they have 'the best trained associates in the business'. He then told me the truck didn't come in yet and try again later. I thought "OK, I jumped the gun. I'll wait for their call."
By 8pm I was getting antsy again. The store closes at 9pm and here I was without the tablet I purchased. I decided to give a second call. This time a young lady said that the tablet did not show up on the truck. They were expecting the tablets but they did not come. She offered to transfer me to the manager but I instead asked when the next shipment was to arrive. She said that it would be Thursday. I decided to wait till then.
Thursday came and while I was at work I decided to give a call to HH Gregg. Surely they got the unit that I purchased in store almost a week prior in by now! I gave the store a call and was told it still didn't show up. It was time for me to call the main corporate customer service line.
I spoke with a lady who did truly try to help resolve the problem. She looked in the warehouses in the area and other stores and found none in stock. It also didn't help that she was having 'computer issues' which didn't let her see all of the information. At the end of the call the best she was able to say was that by Monday the store should have some units since the past two shipments none came.
It's Monday! At noon I gave a call to the local store and was given the same response I'd been accustomed to: 'Sorry, it didn't come in on this shipment'. I called up the main customer service line of HH Gregg again. After about 5 minutes on hold a friendly guy did his best to help. He also searched warehouses and nearby stores to see if shipment had come through. He was able to find one unit but there was two issues: First, the unit was an open box item. Second, the unit was roughly 30 minutes away. As I thought about it the guy said he would give me till Wednesday to decide if I wanted that unit or if I wanted to wait for a sealed unit. I really do appreciate what he did to help but while sitting at my desk I started to think about it.
"Right now, the best they can do is offer me an open box tablet at full price after I make a 30 minute drive to pick it up myself. That is like buying an openbox item online but then deciding to drive to a UPS depot to pick up a shipment. Heck, I could have gotten the unit already if I would have ordered it online!"
Monday evening I started to look online to see if any online or local stores had any tablets in stock. If I could find one nearby I would go get it ASAP and tell HH Gregg to refund my money. Google Shopper told me that 2 stores locally had stock! Excellent! The first was Toys R Us so I decided to give them a call to confirm.
I went through the silly automated system to get to a person so they could answer my question. I told the lady who picked up I wanted to check to see if they had a tablet in stock. She asked me to hold and I waited for about a minute and a half to two minutes. I was then transfered to guy who asked why I was calling. I explained that I wanted to check to see if they had a tablet in stock. He asked me to hold and I waited another minute and a half to two minutes. A different lady picked up and the same thing happened again. And then it happened one last time where the lady said she was trying to get 'electronics' to pick up. This time when she transfered me I made it to electronics. Mind you this was roughly 6-8 minutes into a call to check if they had one item in stock. The guy in electronics listened and said he didn't think they had it in stock but would go check. I spent three minutes or so on hold before I was accidentally hung up on. At this point I decided to not call back as I didn't want to give them my money. What if the product was defective? If they could not figure out how to use phones how can they handle a return? I decided to try the other store which Google shopper said had the product: Walmart.
I called up the Walmart which Google said had stock and was greeted right away by a friendly lady. I told her why I was calling and she transfered me to electronics. Which rang about 25 times and then transfered me back to her. I told her again why I was calling and she transfered me back to electronics where it rang another 25 times before transferring back. This time when the lady picked up again she said (with some frustration) please hold. I then spent 3 minutes with nothing but dead air. I hung up and called back and told her I had just called and we were disconnected. She seemed frustrated (not at me) and transfered me again to electronics. This time someone picked up and they said that they don't carry such a product.
At this point I gave up. I figure that any American brick and mortar shop will give me the same terrible service. In all honesty none of them are worthy of the sale. I figure I'll think a little bit more on the open box item and then decide as to if I will get a refund and order from an online dealer and know that I'll get a sealed product or go ahead and take the gamble from the retail store. Oh, and if you are traveling from another country in to the US it may be a safer bet to wait till you get home to make electronics purchases ... it would be even more frustrating to not only have to wait for the product you paid for in store but then need to pay international shipping!
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Filed under: Personal Tech Frustration
Over the last year I've been keeping a close eye on Android tablets. It hasn't been until this latest round of releases that I really got interested in making a purchase. It took Monk pointing me at the Asus eee Transformer to finally make a decision. After using Google to see if anyone in the area had stock and finding that no one had any listed I decided to wait for a little bit. After a short bit I was told that one of the local HH Greg's was getting a shipment in on a Monday.
"Great!", I thought, "I can run to the store this coming Monday and buy one!". But then something hit me, I should probably call and make sure that they will have a unit available. I gave the store a ring and to my surprise I was told they had two units in stock right then. One unit was the floor model, the other was a unopened unit. I rushed to my car and got over to the store as fast as I could during my lunch break. I went through the whole purchase process and was ready to get my tablet ... and that is where the disappointment began.
The manager couldn't find a new unit. He said that a shipment was coming Monday if I could wait they would give me a call when it came in. I figured that wasn't a bad wait. I had already paid for it and it was better than calling every hour Monday to try to get one of the units before other geeks did. The guy who did the sale was very apologetic about the mix up saying that he really should have checked the back first. I understood how it happened, but it was still frustrating! The guy I spoke to on the phone said there were two and did not physically check. The guy who then helped me when I walked in talked to the first guy, was told there were two and took him at his word. In any case, that was Friday and I spent the weekend looking forward to getting my new tablet Monday.
Monday came and by noon I was getting antsy. I decided to give the store a call and check up. A guy picked up and said he would look up the purchase. I'm not sure if he thought he put me on hold or not but I then heard him say something similar to the following to another employee some distance away: "Hey! I don't know how to do this. What am I supposed to hit?" I kind of chuckled a bit at that being that one of HH Gregg's selling points as a company is that they have 'the best trained associates in the business'. He then told me the truck didn't come in yet and try again later. I thought "OK, I jumped the gun. I'll wait for their call."
By 8pm I was getting antsy again. The store closes at 9pm and here I was without the tablet I purchased. I decided to give a second call. This time a young lady said that the tablet did not show up on the truck. They were expecting the tablets but they did not come. She offered to transfer me to the manager but I instead asked when the next shipment was to arrive. She said that it would be Thursday. I decided to wait till then.
Thursday came and while I was at work I decided to give a call to HH Gregg. Surely they got the unit that I purchased in store almost a week prior in by now! I gave the store a call and was told it still didn't show up. It was time for me to call the main corporate customer service line.
I spoke with a lady who did truly try to help resolve the problem. She looked in the warehouses in the area and other stores and found none in stock. It also didn't help that she was having 'computer issues' which didn't let her see all of the information. At the end of the call the best she was able to say was that by Monday the store should have some units since the past two shipments none came.
It's Monday! At noon I gave a call to the local store and was given the same response I'd been accustomed to: 'Sorry, it didn't come in on this shipment'. I called up the main customer service line of HH Gregg again. After about 5 minutes on hold a friendly guy did his best to help. He also searched warehouses and nearby stores to see if shipment had come through. He was able to find one unit but there was two issues: First, the unit was an open box item. Second, the unit was roughly 30 minutes away. As I thought about it the guy said he would give me till Wednesday to decide if I wanted that unit or if I wanted to wait for a sealed unit. I really do appreciate what he did to help but while sitting at my desk I started to think about it.
"Right now, the best they can do is offer me an open box tablet at full price after I make a 30 minute drive to pick it up myself. That is like buying an openbox item online but then deciding to drive to a UPS depot to pick up a shipment. Heck, I could have gotten the unit already if I would have ordered it online!"
Monday evening I started to look online to see if any online or local stores had any tablets in stock. If I could find one nearby I would go get it ASAP and tell HH Gregg to refund my money. Google Shopper told me that 2 stores locally had stock! Excellent! The first was Toys R Us so I decided to give them a call to confirm.
I went through the silly automated system to get to a person so they could answer my question. I told the lady who picked up I wanted to check to see if they had a tablet in stock. She asked me to hold and I waited for about a minute and a half to two minutes. I was then transfered to guy who asked why I was calling. I explained that I wanted to check to see if they had a tablet in stock. He asked me to hold and I waited another minute and a half to two minutes. A different lady picked up and the same thing happened again. And then it happened one last time where the lady said she was trying to get 'electronics' to pick up. This time when she transfered me I made it to electronics. Mind you this was roughly 6-8 minutes into a call to check if they had one item in stock. The guy in electronics listened and said he didn't think they had it in stock but would go check. I spent three minutes or so on hold before I was accidentally hung up on. At this point I decided to not call back as I didn't want to give them my money. What if the product was defective? If they could not figure out how to use phones how can they handle a return? I decided to try the other store which Google shopper said had the product: Walmart.
I called up the Walmart which Google said had stock and was greeted right away by a friendly lady. I told her why I was calling and she transfered me to electronics. Which rang about 25 times and then transfered me back to her. I told her again why I was calling and she transfered me back to electronics where it rang another 25 times before transferring back. This time when the lady picked up again she said (with some frustration) please hold. I then spent 3 minutes with nothing but dead air. I hung up and called back and told her I had just called and we were disconnected. She seemed frustrated (not at me) and transfered me again to electronics. This time someone picked up and they said that they don't carry such a product.
At this point I gave up. I figure that any American brick and mortar shop will give me the same terrible service. In all honesty none of them are worthy of the sale. I figure I'll think a little bit more on the open box item and then decide as to if I will get a refund and order from an online dealer and know that I'll get a sealed product or go ahead and take the gamble from the retail store. Oh, and if you are traveling from another country in to the US it may be a safer bet to wait till you get home to make electronics purchases ... it would be even more frustrating to not only have to wait for the product you paid for in store but then need to pay international shipping!
digg it
seed it
del.icio.us
ma.gnolia
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