CARLTON FLETCHER: The customer is always … screwed

We got some in-store microwave ovens, custom kitchen delivery …

— Dire Straits

It’s rare nowadays when people take the time to even make a phone call … a letter or an email is like an almost unheard-of commodity in an age when we’re so busy and self-absorbed with the minutiae of our own lives — wait a second, gotta take a selfie of the leftovers that have been in the fridge for three weeks that I just discovered and am having for lunch — that we tend to forget family and others who are important to us (except, of course, our Facebook “friends”).

So I took it as an omen this week when I got a letter, two emails and three phone calls from people who had the same thing on their minds: lousy customer service.

Some of the complaints we hear about all the time: “I’ve never been treated so rudely at a place where I’m spending my money …” “The people at (local restaurant A) acted as if I should be praising them because they were cooking for me, although I was paying for the meal, which is, I thought, kind of the way this system works. …” “When I called and asked about the (item I bought), the person on the other end of the phone treated me like I was an idiot.”

And there were these:

“I didn’t particularly like having these people in my home, but I had no choice. I was doing something in another part of the house, and when I walked into my bedroom where they were working, one of the bozos was sitting on my bed … just sitting there.” … “(Company A) called me the night before and said, ‘You’re the first call on our list tomorrow, so we’ll be at your house around 6 a.m.’ I re-arranged my schedule, got up early to get ready and waited … and waited … and waited. They got there at 6 all right, 6 p.m.! I wasted an entire day waiting around on these people.”

There were other stories, but these are pretty much representative of the complaints I’m hearing on a regular basis from people who, I guess, believe those old sayings about “the customer always being right” and “we built our reputation on our customer service” actually still being true.

Some of the correspondences were of a different nature, but they were certainly no less disturbing if you’re a member of the consumer-buying public.

“I was spending (a pretty significant sum of money) on new appliances and wanted them delivered to my home,” one person said. “When I mentioned delivery at every place I went, I was shocked at the response. Delivery charges (within a two- to three-mile radius) ranged from $70 to $120. But that’s not the worst.

“When they delivered the things I bought, they informed me that they would only ‘drop them off in the yard.’ They do not, they told me, bring the appliances into the house, and ‘we quit setting things up a long time ago.’”

Stunned at this revelation, one angry consumer called the store, thinking perhaps he was being put on or had drawn the new employees in the delivery lottery who didn’t understand that a considerable sum of money had been exchanged for these appliances.

“The person at the store — which I will never, ever shop at again, even if they are the only business that carries some item I desperately need … I’ll do without first — first of all talked down to me like I was a moron,” this angry consumer said. “When I asked them if their policy was to ‘drop stuff off in the yard,’ the person on the other end of the phone said, ‘That’s correct.’ When I mentioned that I did not have help to move these significantly bulky appliances into my home and that the threat of rain was sitting at around 80 percent for later in the day, this person said, ‘Looks like you should have planned a little better.’”

The consumer admitted to spouting a few choice words before asking, “Is there any way these people can make an exception and put these appliances in my home … I mean, not even hook them up, but at least get them out of the weather?”

The reply?

“Sure … for an extra $50.”

That, boys and girls, is apparently what serves as customer service … at least in certain businesses in 21st-century Albany, GA, USA.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected]. Follow @ABH_Fletcher on Twitter.

Staff Photo