So, last night while the wife was on the phone with a friend I was tooling around on the interweb. I came across a handheld rangefinder at Canadian Tire. (I will not link to their website as it is awfully slow at times and may lockup or crash your computer, seriously. Look it up on your own if you feel the need.)
I was not even looking for a rangefinder. Regardless, I found a Halo brand rangefinder that is normally $250 on clearance for 50 bones. I have wanted a rangefinder for a long time. My eye was on one that Bass Pro sold exclusively as it had 8x magnification and red illumination, blah, blah, blah. However, I gave up on Bass Pro when they thought I was going to stand in line for an hour or two to wait my turn to give them my money. You see, optics, most of which are locked up in their store, have to be perused through the gunshop. Well, there were an awful lot of people lined up thinking they were getting deals and waiting their turn to give their money to them. Not me, I said bite me and left.
So, when I accidentally found this one, I was surprised, especially the price. The wife said to go for it. I ordered it through my Canadian Tire app on my phone, which is moderately better than their website. I woke up this morning to an email from "Crappy Tire" telling me I cancelled my order. I do not normally online shop in my sleep so I was surprised that I somehow did this during my slumber-time. I figured there were some shenanigans going on. I went online and saw the one unit at my selected store, that I thought I bought the night before, was still for sale.
I proceeded to buy it again. Their website was doing their frequent lagging. It was taking a ridiculous amount of time to load through the various pages of my re-purchase. Then! It! Happened! BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!!!!!!
Are you frikin' kidding me?!?!?!? Canuck Pnue just crashed my computer. I went to my tablet to try to carry on. Nope. Could no longer click in to the item. I! WAS! LOSING! IT!! I figured I was doomed. That by the time my system restarted and I got back to the item I would be just as boned as on the tablet.
Oh, what was going on? I reloaded all the crashed Chrome pages and I was still at the check out. I completed it, somewhat excruciatingly. I bought it again. I got a confirmation email, printed the order information and called the customer support line to confirm my purchase.
They contacted the store directly to confirm the item was in stock. Apparently, it was not. It was a stock count error. In the meantime, I allegedly cancelled my order again. This was absolutely not on. I explained how this was unacceptable. How, such a large company as Canadian Tire, could be so inefficient. Sure stock count errors occur, but why send a message that says thy buyer cancelled the purchase, each time? Why not be honest and say the product cannot be found? Why not offer to contact the customer and offer a reasonable alternative? Why not want to try to keep my business?
Anyway, lots of answers to my questions. None that were very satisfactory. Oh, and while on the phone with Customer Service, I checked the website after the second cancellation. The rangefinder was relisted, again. It still is. Apparently, it cannot be removed until Monday. Really, they are a seven & twenty-four operation through their website sales component. Therefore, they should be supporting their services properly as well as their customers. That rangefinder should not have been able to get to a super price reduction and purchasable online, if the product is missing.
Oh, you may not realise how The Tire operates their website. You need to pick a store and then it shows the products that store has. Some, regularly carried items and flyer items will show up if your store does not have it and give you the opportunity to select other stores to purchase items. However, many items, like this rangefinder will not show up if your selected store does not have the item. It is all very confusing actually. I have often been unable to find items that I know Croatian Tire sells, due to their confusing and poor website and their protocols.
Wow, I feel like I have been writing this for days. That is how exiting this really is.
So, anyway the customer service representative, who was very nice, but limited in power and ability to fix my woes, did end up offering to send me a $25 gift card if I bought another rangefinder that was on sale. It is basically the same model, but a more recent version, $10 more at regular price than the first one ($260), but only on sale for $180. So, I basically said, big deal, $25 off, so I pay $155 for a rangefinder I should be getting for $50.
She offered to pass me on to her supervisor. I asked if her supervisor could do better. She said no. I said it was unfortunate that this could not be fixed properly. They could not source the first rangefinder from another store as they told me they could not search the national stock count. I find that dubious and very odd if that is really the case. They cannot sell me a comparable rangefinder for a comparable price. Most businesses will do as much as reasonably possible to satisfy their customers.
Canadian Tire Corporation, at this point in my pursuit for a product they offered to sell me, appeared not to want or care to do that. I mentioned I was going to write about this unfortunate result. She was a little put out. She was shocked that I was going to put it on television and call the media. Wow! Okay? Not where I was going, I said so as well. I said I was just going to write about what happened and that I hoped that it would spread around. To be honest, I have no need to say anything. Many people I know and meet, including in Canadian Tire retail locations, are very unhappy with CTC. Why, because like a lot of companies, they do not understand or care about their customers. Thereby they fix no problems of their own making, expecting that every customer lost is easily replaced. That can be true sometimes, but eventually the only people who are not your customers are the ones you have alienated and pissed off. so, when you keep losing customers, how do you get new ones? Hope to ride out an entire generation and get their kids when they become mainstream consumers? Good luck with your "who gives a crap about our customers, there are always more" business model.
Then, she offered to pass me on to her supervisor again, obviously misunderstanding my intent to post about this. After several minutes on hold, we covered most of all that I went through already with the first Rep. Then she offered me a $100 gift card if I buy the $180 rangefinder. I figure that will be the best deal I will see in a long time for a rangefinder. I mention that they only have one listed on the website for that store. So, she even calls the store to make sure there is one in stock and it is waiting for me.
I find that amazing because I have never heard of a Canadian Tire in a "big" city ever hold an item for a customer. Small town Canuck Pnues, yup, they sure do, like the one in Kemptville. They will even book appointments in their garage, unlike the ones in the cities. Those big city guys know that there are enough people who will limp in to their garage with urgent repairs, why waste energy booking and helping customers who plan ahead?
So, I agree, but ask how this exactly works. Well, I go to the store, I buy the rangefinder, I get home and call Customer Service back and they take relevant information from the receipt and they send me the $100 gift card. Not necessarily ideal as I have to spend the $100 they are "giving" me at their stores, but with the points I should get today, I should be able to get that sleeping bag I am saving for to complete my three-season sleep system. Plus, the fact that the wife wants a four foot tall light up moose they sell for an outdoor Christmas decoration, that gift card is good and spent already.
So, I do all that and when I call to get the gift card expedited to my mailbox, the guy I get on the phone starts telling me about faxing in the receipt and blah, blah, blah. I interrupt and tell him that that is a huge pain in the ass. Surely, there must be a better way? After all, why tell me to call? Why not tell me originally to fax it in? Really? Fax? I should at least be able to take a picture of it and email it. No?
So, this guy puts me on hold and after a few minutes, he asks me to read off some information off the receipt. Yay! Something appears to be sinking in over there. He tells me it will take about two weeks for me to get the gift certificate. If I do not get in in two weeks to call them, just in case. Well, that inspires confidence!?
Ha, ha, I was just trying to look at that sleeping bag I want. It is on sale and I wanted to see for how long; it does not say, so probably only one week. Just about had a double-barrelled stroke form the chrushingly slow website that also was locking up my attempts post. I thought I was going to lose what I typed.
So, even though CTC seems to have placated me as a customer, they did not do all that of a very good job at it really. They also need to train their staff better and improve their software. They need to act like a quality online company too if they want to promote themselves as one. If not, with all these growing failings, they will go the way of Sears Canada. Anybody can come crashing down. They are certainly promoting themselves as a prime candidate for selection.
Gee, I hope I get that gift card quickly. I would not want to be stuck with it and unable to spend it when they are out of business. That would suck for me. blbbl
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