Brain Tilt

The other night, I ripped a page right out of the MickMel play book: I had bad service at a restaurant and emailed them about my experience when I got home. Here’s what happened:

My wife and I went to Stoney River Legendary Steaks a couple of weeks ago. We had never been so we thought we’d give it a shot. Upon our arrival, we were told that the wait would be 20 minutes (it was 6:30 on a Wednesday night). We were finally seated 45 minutes. Not a big deal. That kind of thing happens in nice places all the time. So I let it go.

When we were seated, our waiter came by and, with as little enthusiasim as possible, took our drink orders. He didn’t return for a full 10 minutes. Unacceptable. Then he told us the specials and took our order, again with little interest in doing so. We didn’t see him again until the he brought us our check. I had to ask the girl who brought out our meal to refill our drinks. So we finally get the check and leave.

As you may have gathered from my Office Max experience, I HATE bad customer service. So after this experience, I decided I’d try a classic MickMel tactic: email the restaurant when I got home and tell them of my experience. He usually gets good results, so I figured I had nothing to lose. So I sent off my email.

The next day, I got a call at home from the managing partner at Stoney River. I wasn’t able to take the call, but he left a message that was very apologetic. He said that he wanted to talk to me about my experience and was very sorry that we had a bad experience. He kept leaving messages and I kept forgetting to call back. So finally, I called him back yesterday. We talked for a few minutes. I told him that the food was outstanding but the service left a lot to be desired.

He eventually asked for my address. He then told me that he was going to send a $100 voucher for us to use. He also told me that when we decided to use it, to call him and he would make sure that we wouldn’t have to wait to be seated. He also said he wanted to meet me in person and make sure that I understood that service was his top priority.

I was blown away. Most places would just send a form email response or a form letter. This guy called me and wanted to make sure I knew that he was working to correct the issue. I was very impressed. Needless to say, I think our next trip to Stoney River will be MUCH better.

At this point, I am convinced that Office Max hates its customers. After my previous experience with customer service at Office Max, I decided that rather than purchase anything from the store, I’d use my gift card online, hoping to avoid a customer service nightmare.

I was wrong.

I logged onto Office Max’s site and found the PDA I had wanted in the store. When I tried to add it to my cart, I kept getting an error message telling me that my connection had been severed and to try again. After “trying again” 5 times, I finally got it added to my cart. Now its time to checkout and be done with Office Max forever.

First they want my billing info (including billing address), so I enter that into the form. Next, they want my shipping address. Now, I like to have electronics and expensive items shipped to my office, since they usually have to be signed for. This way, even if I’m not there, someone in the mailroom can sign for it; makes life much simpler. Well, I enter in my office address and I’m told that I can’t use that address since it’s different than my billing address. And that confuses me since there is a checkbox that says “Shipping address is same as billing address”. That would lead me to believe that it is ok to enter an address that is different from the billing address. I will say that I have run into several sites recently that have this same issue (want same billing and shipping address). So, frustrated yet again with Office Max, I enter my home address.

This all happened on Friday. I knew that my stuff wouldn’t be shipped on Saturday or Sunday, so I didn’t bother to check. Monday morning, I logged in to check the shipping status and it hasn’t shipped. No big deal, they’ll ship it later today. Monday night at around 11:00, I check and it still hasn’t shipped. That’s odd. I thought for sure that they would have shipped it Monday, since they got the order Friday afternoon at 3:00.

So this morning, Tuesday, I log in and it has finally shipped. There is even a message that tells me to click on the truck icon to see shipping info from UPS. Well, I click on my order and not only is there no truck icon, but the arrival date has now mysteriously disappeared (it had been 4-7 days).

Now all I know is that my item has been shipped but I have no way of tracking it and no general idea of when it might arrive. Thanks Office Max!!

I can say for certain, that I will never buy anything from Office Max again.

I went to return some jump drives that I had gotten as a gift from Office Max today. I got my store credit easy enough, but after that, my OM experience deteriorated quickly.

I was looking to spend my store credit on a PDA, so I visited the few places in the store that I thought the PDA’s might be located. With the MP3 players?? Nope. In the “Organizer” section?? Nope. In the day planner section?? Nope. So at this point I have been wandering around the store for about 15 minutes and I realize that NO ONE has bothered to ask if I need help. And I’m pretty sure I looked lost and confused, since I was lost and confused. And I absolutely cannot stand it when you receiver zero customer service when you are in a store to spend money and help them stay in business. I’m not asking to be treated like a king, but a simple “Can I help you?” would be great.

At this point, I receive a phone call from a friend. WHILE I AM ON THE PHONE, one of the customer service reps comes up and asks if I need help. WHILE I AM ON THE PHONE!!!! They wouldn’t come near me when I was wondering around looking confused, but as soon as I get on the phone they are more than eager to help me. I tell the gentleman that I don’t need help at the moment because I’M ON THE PHONE.

After I hang up, I resume looking lost and confused. I do this for another 5 minutes and I’m treated like a Singapore hooker with sores on her mouth and a case of the clap. No one comes near me. Finally, one of the reps begins approaching me (so I think). I tell him that I have a question. And he continues to walk past me, muttering something about “…need to keep circling.” Since he seemed incapable of stopping for 3 seconds to answer my question, I followed him and asked if they carried PDA’s. He grunted something and pointed to an end cap located near the telephones. Thanks!!!

Well, I walk over to the PDA’s and begin signaling that I need help: stare at product; glance up and look around wildly for someone to help with pleading eyes. After about five minutes of this, someone finally approaches me and is able to inform me that they were out of the particular one I wanted.

In all, I spent 25 minutes in Office Max to find out the thing I wanted was not in stock at the moment. After I learned that I could use my store credit gift card online, my decision on visiting that Office Max again was easy. Not. Gonna. Happen.

I HATE BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE.