September 23, 2005

No Soup For You!

To go along with recent bad experiences suffered by Snarky and SAJU, I had a bizarrely odd encounter with a business today.

I got SG a personalized gift for his birthday last year, poker chips to be exact, and he seems to really like them. His birthday is on the way (well, I have until November) and I have been mulling over some ideas. One of them involves personalization. It has just been sort of in the back of my head till today when I passed an engraving store, C & C Engraving. I figured I would just stop in and get a feel for what they could do with my idea.

Bad idea!

 
The woman would barely let me get my words out. I started describing the situation and she started immediately telling me "we don't do what you want" - and I had to keep saying "I haven't told you what I want yet" She kept stopping me while I was trying to explain and telling me "we can't help you"    WTF? You are a business, don't you want my money?

I finally managed to get it all out and discern that they could do what I need, though not quite what I was envisioning. However, since she was such a royal b**** and their stuff looked sort of cheap and tacky, even if I decide to do it, I certainly won't be taking my business there. I would recommend you look elsewhere for your engraving needs also.

This was followed by a very helpful and sweet lady at the cell phone store, AZ Wireless & Paging, right next door to the engraving shop, where I got a clip that I hope will work for SG's RAZR.

Then a stop at the AM/PM where the friendly clerk was giggling at me dancing to their muzak and told me "you come back anytime, we love people like you"

Later, a stop at Blockbuster where the clerk went above and beyond to get me a couple of movies we wanted - though she couldn't manage to conjure up a copy of The Longest Yard.

All in all, positive experiences today way out number the negative - yet I keep thinking about that little twinkie and her dismissive, get-the-f***-out-of-my-store attitude. I hate that!

Posted by Vox at September 23, 2005 11:30 PM | peeves
Comments

My pet peeve is BAD customer Service. To be honest, I run into it FAR more here in AZ state then when I lived in WA state. Don't know why, although I have my theories. ;-)

I take your recommendation to heart Vox, and will not ever use C & C Engraving! (The power of "word of mouth",;-) businesses should take it more to heart, when hiring rude idiot sales people. Or pay the few cents more to aquire quality sales people)

3T

Posted by: 3rd Times a Charm ( 3T ) at September 24, 2005 09:56 AM

Usually I can snap people out of it because I try to be friendly and kind.

It becomes sort of a game/challenge with the bad customer service people, be really sweet and see if you can get them to lighten up, perhaps smile, maybe even give you a little better service. Every now and then, though, you find one that you can't crack - though even then I leave feeling OK because my attitude was positive.

That chick yesterday, though, made me feel like I was NOT welcome to be in the same city with her, let alone darkening the door of her shop. She made it feel like she was being especially rude to me because she found me especially irritating - and I had barely had a chance to say anything. How could I have offended her? Grrrr!

Posted by: Vox at September 24, 2005 11:20 AM

Yeah, I hate people like that. I especially hate people like that in the workplace.

Posted by: yayaempress at September 26, 2005 08:43 AM