Customer Service - it's the little things

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

8 days ago, I ordered some stuff from a hobby shop that regularly advertises in one of the big model railroading magazines. I had never dealt with them before, but decided to order from them because they had the lowest prices of the stuff I needed to get.

Today I was out working in the yard all morning, and by the time I finished it was already early afternoon. My order was supposed to be shipped UPS, so I thought it should have arrived by now, even though the hobby shop is on the east coast and I’m in the northwest. On another recent order from a different shop, the store accidentally shipped my order to another customer with the same last name, and it took a long time for it to get straightened out. I was afraid a similar thing had happened this time.

So I decided I’d better call the shop before they closed, to check on the status of my order, just to give myself a warm fuzzy about it. I checked the store hours before calling, and it was late in the day, but was still about 10 minutes before their posted closing time. “Plenty of time to just ask about my order,” I thought.

So I called and an older-sounding gentleman answered the phone. I asked if I could check on the status of an order I had placed the previous week. The next words out of his mouth were:

“A little late on a Saturday afternoon for that kind of thing, but let me see what I can do…”

I was kind of surprised by this comment! For a split second, I thought about challenging him by pointing out that they were still open for business for another 10 minutes, but I decided not to say anything because:

a. I didn’t know the status of my order and didn’t want to give them any reason to “mess with” it if they still could.

b. I wasn’t sure if it was a big enough deal to do anything about.

He did manage to find out that it had been shipped, and was kind enough to give me the UPS tracking number, and assured me that I would probably receive it sometim

2

Seems to me you are making a mountain out of a molehill over something very trivial. You don’t know anything about the shop, perhaps the fellow who answered the phone was there all by himself all day without any breaks, and was already in the process of closing up the shop - counting the cash, etc.

My wife used to work in a retail gift shop in a mall. Seems way too often customers would come in a few minutes before closing time and expected to be able to browse around at their leisure, taking their time. My wife had been in the store for 8-10 hours, on her feet, and wasn’t overly impressed with the late minute shoppers. She never did say anything to them, I know I would have! I’d be waiting in the car for her to come out and sometimes it would be 15-20 minutes after the mall had closed, most people had left.

So perhaps have a little consideration for the fellow on the phone. Maybe he just worked there, did not own the shop and just wanted to close. Now if you hadn’t gotten your information, it would have been something else.

Live with it, leave the fellow alone. If you don’t like their service, go somewhere else.

3

Dan,

Since it’s your first dealings with this particular hobby shop, I would just blow it off. Everyone has their personality and/or can have a bad day.

If you do end up ordering from them again and you get similar type receptions or comments by their personnel, then it’s worth bringing up with the management. If you do, you should do it in a pleasant but constructive manner.

Tom

4

Coming from sales background, keeping posted hours has always been one of my pet peeves, I have often had one my best sales in the last 5 minutes. A TacoBell in my neighborhood extended their hours and I would often be turned away because they had already cashed out 45 minutes before the posted closing time, this really annoyed me , why post the hours if you’re not going to keep them. I called TacoBell HQs and that store now complies with posted hours.

As the others have said, if this was just a one-off, I’d let it go, if it happens again, then mention it to management.

5

Since you asked, yes, in my opinion you’re overreacting.

He gave you the UPS tracking number. Plug it in and see where your package is. Concentrate on thinking about your package arriving and stop stressing over an innocent remark.

Best regards

Ed

6

I was confronted by a rude b*** when paying for some auto parts. Half of me wanted to stiff her with the merchandise but I paid anyway and left with some regret. A month later, I noticed a new competing auto parts store, whom is famous for red carpet treatment, under construction a block away. Made my heart feel good.

7

Dan, from a philosophical point of view, you gave and were willing to receive the same teleological ethic…utilitarian, actually. You swallowed your value system so that you could effect your aim of getting information, and so that he would not mess with you. You also suggest later that he ought to have done the same, blown you off with a lie so that his own satisfaction and happiness could become manifest that late afternoon, and that is not what happened. His ethic, although he honestly let you know how he felt about your late call, came through and he did the right thing. Had he done what you felt he ought to have done, which oddly would not have accomplished your aims of getting real information, you would be no further ahead.

Bottom line, neither of you was “injured” in the transaction, there was no wrong-doing, and you both went away having met your aims.

8

A simple “oh, I apoligize are you closed?” may have garnered an apoligy or worse.

He did do that which you requested in the long run.

9

Thanks for the variety of responses, guys. And you are all right, I think it was not a big deal in retrospect. I guess I just needed to vent a little, and then I felt better.

I make no apologies for calling 10 minutes before closing time, because I had a pretty good idea that I could complete the call and hang up with them before the official closing time.

I did get what I wanted, but to me, that is beside the point. When I go to a fast food place, most of the time I get exactly what I ordered, but it doesn’t excuse the sloppy customer service.

But, maybe the guy was just having a bad day, and it’s not enough to judge the company overall. Heck, it may very well be the best hobby shop around! I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, but if there’s any problems in my future dealings with them, I will kindly take it up with the management (in a polite, civilized way, of course).

10

I’d let it go. The guy may have just shut his computer down for the day or something. After all, he DID answer your question.

11

I would not worry about it.

I recall a truck stop in Virginia that had 60 hungry drivers at lunch time waiting on one waitress who was taking her required break. It was not the waitress we were angry at, it was the tightfisted bean counting owner of the place who could not spare a few extra dollars to properly staff the building with the necessary levels of Personel. We were very angry that day. Last I checked they are probably still trying to run a 40 man building with just 5 people 24/7.

That is one of the reasons the truckstops as I understand them are dispensing with the traditional restruant model and having you, the customer serve yourself on your feet near the front door via a VISA card that you swipe yourself. To me that is not customer service.

The man on the phone did tell you what you were looking for and gave you the tracking number. I think that is about all you can expect that close to closing. One of my shops close precisely at 5 pm sharp and I like to do my business late in the morning well before closing time when Im in the area. I cannot expect to get good Customer Service 5 minutes before closing.

12

I work in a shop, we close on Saturdays at 4pm, you can bet your life that come 3.50pm people will walk into the shop in droves, these people most likely knocked off work on Friday and have had all day Saturday to do their shopping but no they have to be a pain in the butt and walk in at closing time.

I would like to add that here in Australia we only get paid to 4pm anything after that is done for love, sometimes we dont get the doors closed till 4.15pm and by the time the till is balanced we get out about 4.30pm, that is why we try to pack the shop up at 3.45pm, so we dont have to work unpaid overtime, sadly folks can see you are packing up and counting the till, they still walk in, to me the customer is not always right and they can be very selfish, we like our leasure time too.

I guess I may feel a little differnt if our Government has not introduced the new drakonian industrial relations laws, they want to bring Australians in line with the rest of South East Asia and work for a pittence.

13

Yeah, you got reasonable service for 10 min to closing IMO-if it was 2 min or something, then I would expect the other end to get testy. Working in a public library, 10 min till closing makes us look at the clock, but still we’re available for the public’s needs. It’s the ones that come in at 2 min till closing that decide they want a library card, search something for me, I need to send a FAX (usually to a # that’s having problems) or need to make an infinite # of copies that will keep us past our posted hours of service.

A couple weeks ago I had an important meeting with my realtor immediately after closing time, & I literally had to raise my voice to a patron who continued to browse the fiction section after closing, & the lights were turned out. Remember, we that are in service to the public-we want to serve you, but within our posted hours. We don’t get paid past then, so you’re on our time, & we may need to have important business of our own to attend to also. My experience with this has made me VERY attentitive as to business hrs, & if I’m on the public end, make sure I’m expedious as possible & not to hold the serving end up as to getting off the clock!

14

I’m running out of LHSs.

I served the public for 15 or so years in central London ticket offices. I’ve even been accused of putting the tickets on the counter in a “racist manner” (you should have heard what the Jordie behind her in the queue said) … so I think that I know a little about being nice, polite and annoying customers. [Just re-read this… I meant "customers who - to put it politely - are annoying… then again… [:-,]].

Having had to be polite and smile [99% of the time] I am amazed by the rudeness and ignorance with which staff in hobby shops speak to their customers.

The bottom line is that it’s their living and our hobby. We don’t have to go there.

A couple of months ago I even dumped a $400 order with Walthers. All I kept getting back from them was what they couldn’t do to process my charge. Okay, there can be problems since 9/11 and with all the card fraud stuff. I had the money there waiting. I told them every way I knew of putting the transaction through to make it work. All I kept getting back was “Can’t do that” and “That doesn’t work”. Well, they used to have staff that got it to work.

Now they have lost a customer.

It doesn’t matter how big or well established a shop is… it can always go out of business.

[V]

15

How very true, you would think when there are so few LHS that they would go out of their way to be nice, maybe thats the reason why people get treated badly, they know we need equipment and their attitude is “take it or leave it”, I know of a couple of hobby shops in Brisbane where you are lucky if you get served at all, these are the shops that carry other hobby stuff besides trains, thankfully the few specialist railroad shops we have treat their customers with respect and are great for giving help.

Could also be one of the many reasons people are using online shopping?.

16

Having worked in the retail business in the past I would say let it go. The last 1/2 hour before a store closes is their busiest and always when they are understaffed the most. Look at it this way, the guy has to ring out his till and come up with a reason for any errors, speed up any customers that are in the store, vaccuum, dust, stock shelves etc. Add looking up some info for you on top of that probably screwed up his routine. To be honest with you I really believe that most people out there don’t give people in retail the respect they deserve, people are way to quick to jump on them for the tinyest or stupidest reasons when if you step back and look at the situation that the customer is usually 90% to blame. If you were so worried about your package then you should have phoned in the morning, not 10 minutes before the store closed. How would you like it if you were running around getting caught up with your work with 10 minutes to go in your shift when your boss shows up and asks you for something, are you going to mumble something under your breath about how late in the day it is? Sure you would but you are going to do it because he is your boss. Thats why the guy looked up the info for you and thats why he said what he said to you.

17

I guarantee that person answering the phone didn’t own the shop. If he did, then he won’t be in business much longer. I’ve learned that comments like that will not do you any good in the long run. Looking up a tracking number takes like two minutes. Most customers don’t care if you’ve been there two hours or twelve.

18

I’d say you got off pretty well in that interaction. There are a lot more rude internet sales people than that. Try Trainworld, for example. I’m not knocking the site, by the way, some of the best selection and prices available. But diplomatic they are not. Try calling for product information from the order number, or order from the product info. number (no, I didn’t ever try it mainly because of stories on other threads). They’re so blunt/rude there I actually find it amusing, but I’m sure not everyone does. Not everyone on the other side of the line has gone to a Dale Carnegie course[:D]

19

Trainworld is a unique place to order from. The thing to remember when calling them is that their customer service (which I presume is high school help) deal with stock #s and stock #s only. Anything outside that realm is unknown territory.

This is not a slap against Trainworld. I have ordered from them 2 or 3 times now and have gotten good service. You just have to know what you should expect and not expect from an online vendor. I’ve heard it’s different when visiting their showroom.

Tom

20

One of my LHS’s actually snarled behind the counter out of frusteration. The accompanying thunder and lightning issuing forth from behind the register driven by a artic chill was something to behold. I almost didnt buy anything that day… except I needed that paint badly to finish the project.

Later on an email arrived with apologies and a short explaination.

Can you say “Customer for Life?” LOL.