My body weight
doesn’t grow or shrink much, but there’s so much of me that I change shape in
quite dramatic fashion. 4 days a week I’ll do a 10 minute warm-up on my rowing
machine, followed by a 3 mile walk with Lady Dog. On the Snapper's day off I
sweat for a two hours mowing the lawn.
All good and
triff, as long as the rowing machine isn’t broken. A month ago the belt went,
and now my body is falling to bits. No, sorry, my bits are still intact and
attached, but everything has fallen out.
Watching tele with my arms resting on
my belly is not good for morale. Buttons zinged off 2 pairs of trousers that
were giving me an inch of spare air only a fortnight ago. Worst of all, pecs
the size of small continents are inexorably morphing back into what my beloved
wife once described as
“14 year-old nubile breasts.”
There cannot be a
less attractive look.
So off I went to
find a new rowing machine pronto. Visiting a major catalogue store’s website I
found a €490 piece of kit on special offer, going for €220. Great! I’d simply
drive into Galway City and buy it, but first I needed to check whether it was
in stock.
I clicked on the
drop-down menu beside ‘Check stock in your area’ - entered ‘Galway’ and up
came a big tick and words saying ‘In Stock’. On the other side of the window it
advised me that if I wanted home delivery, it would be done in 10 days.
But I neither
needed nor wanted home delivery, as the rowing machine was in stock in Galway.
Eager to look more
like a man than a schoolgirl, I drove into the city, filled out the slip in the
shop and presented it to the checkout server, who said I couldn’t buy this
rowing machine in the shop.
When I told him I’d just driven all the way into
the city because their website specifically said it was in stock in Galway, he
assured me that yes, it was in stock, in a warehouse in England. If I wanted it
I’d have to go for home delivery, but I’d have it within two weeks.
Living in an
obscure spot, I try to avoid home delivery at all costs. I pointed out that
everywhere I looked delivery times were estimated within 10 days. He shrugged.
I asked him to go to the product’s website page and follow my click trail,
which he did and then said:
“Oh yes. I can see
why you thought it might be in stock.”
Why I thought
that?
Why I thought that a search for stock in their Galway shop
resulting in ‘In Stock!’ showing below a great big tick might lead me to
believe it was in stock in Galway?
I paid for the
item and went over to the shop’s customer service counter, where the server
told me she couldn’t help me as I needed customer service. Standing back I
pointed to the sign above my head and then she explained that customer service
for the website was different. I showed her my website journey once again and
she said that it was confusing.
“It’s not
confusing,” I assured her, “It’s just wrong; a lie.”
Back at home I
called to set up my delivery and was told that the next available delivery date
was just under 4 weeks later. Worse, it was coming on a Friday, sometime
between 7:30 am and 6:00pm - a window that in this day and age is anachronistic
and ridiculous,
Holding my breath
I told her that Fridays are busy days in my life and to be stuck in all day
would prove extremely inconvenient. I asked if the driver could leave it at the
garage in the village, to which I was told that yes, that could be arranged,
but this delivery would then have to be cancelled and a new delivery organised,
and the nearest date for that delivery might be even further away.
At this point I
sort of lost it. I told her that nobody expects their customers to wait in an
entire day any more. Their customer service ethic and delivery service was
stuck in the 1970s.
So I called their
customer service team to make a complaint and after waiting a long time in the
queue I spoke to a woman who was frankly pretty confrontational. Unlike the
staff in the store, she adamantly refused to see that the website was at fault.
She raised her voice and dug her feet in. I asked to speak to her supervisor
and she was much more conciliatory, yet could not offer me any solution.
Later that day I
received a call from a UK number on my Irish mobile, so I didn’t answer. The
message left advised me to call urgently about this order, as some new
information was available.
Believing it possible that someone had worked
miracles, I sat on the phone, waiting in long queues all that afternoon and
twice the following morning, until eventually I got through to a human, only to
be advised that they had no idea why I’d been asked to call, because there was
nothing new.
They said I’d probably got a call from the automatic
dialler.
Great! More
valuable hours wasted waiting on the phone for no reason whatsoever.
So I pressed my
magic button, available only to those willing to make enough noise or write
about consumer debacles in newspapers.
Within a couple of
hours of sending an email to their media department, the entire matter was
resolved.
The rowing machine
arrives next week, for which my body and those around me are truly grateful.
What bugs me
though, each time things like this happen, is that if they can do it for me,
just because I’m threatening to write about it, why can’t they do it for
everyone?
Charlie
Adley
31.07.14.
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