Customer Service Debacles 'R' Us: A Retail Nightmare
Date : 14 Jul 2008 Category : Technology
NewsFactor NetworkWitness the following scenario. Tuesday, April 1st: Upon realizing that my increasingly mobile young child required a play yard for the purpose of her safety, our sanity and the continued mental health of our family cats, I began investigating options. I found one we liked -- the largest available, the Graco Pack 'n Play in Bugs Quilt Totblock. I checked both Walmart.com and Toysrus. com for the item. Neither had the play yard in stock at my local stores, so I was obliged to order it online. I chose Toysrus.com and received an e- mail confirming my order and informing me the item was in stock.
Tuesday, April 8th: It was at this point, a reasonable week after placing the order, that I began anticipating the arrival of my play yard. To no avail.
Thursday, April 10th: Realizing that my credit card number hadn't been charged yet, an indication that the company had not even begun processing the order, I called the Toys "R" Us customer service number, which has some fine and expensive speech recognition software at the front end (please keep this fact in mind for purposes I will outline later). The agent informed me that for standard ground delivery, it could take up to 10 business days for the item to arrive, so we were still technically within our...