It’s Thursday, April 29th, 2010 and that’s all I have to say about that.
Just kidding. It’s of course Thursday and we drop in on our Department of:
Death to poor customer service.
No, really. Death to it.
I’m in a business where we live and die by the customer experience. With a recession going on and prices being slashed for pret’near everything, it’s your customer experience that’s gonna see you through these troubling times.
Well, unless you have a captive audience. Then you get to do whatever you want.
Wednesday evening, while making to go home, the Dutchman III showed considerable reluctance to fire up. Using my Leatherman and a pair of fence pliers:
I was able to get the clamps off, clean the battery terminals, get them back on and start her up.
I got home and using proper tools, replaced the clamps and gave the terminals a proper cleaning. She fired right up, but I remained suspicious. Sure enough, yesterday morning, she was grumpy again and I had to jump start from the wife’s Subaru. This wasn’t a huge problem. I’d just nip over to WalMart, have the battery tested and replaced if necessary.
I was pleased to find no one in front of me as I pulled up to the open service bay day. This was the only pleasing thing about my visit. Upon entry, I was promptly greeted and then ignored by a rather scruffy looking fellow who seemed more interested in pecking away at a computer than finding out why I had infiltrated his place of prevail.
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Just as I was turning on my heel to leave, a woman in WalMart garb came around the corner and asked if I’d been helped. Mister Scruffy then took it as his cue and announced that he’d see to me. I informed His Scruffiness that I simply needed my battery tested right quick and asked if he could perform this task. He told me he could, grabbed up some hand-held device and we went out to my truck.
It was here that he told me that he couldn’t test the battery “right quick” but instead had to “write me up.” I told him that was fine, but asked if he could have the battery tested in say, 10 minutes. He responded by waving the device at me and repeating his need to write me up. “Okay” I said, “But is it possible to do that AND test the battery in ten minutes? I’m a little pressed for time.” His response was that he simply couldn’t just test the battery without writing me up first.
“Alright look,” says I, “This is a ‘yes or no’ kind of question: Can you do that and test my battery in ten minutes?” His response was no, this was a first-come, first-served situation.
Judging from the emptiness of the service bays, I assumed that “first” was me. I informed Mister Scruffy of my reasoning, only to be told, “About 30 minutes.”
Apparently, this “write you up” task is a fairly time-consuming thing. Testing a battery is as simple as opening the hood, attaching the test leads to the battery and glancing at the display. I told The Scruffmeister, that this was unacceptable and made to leave. He tried explaining his seemingly desperate need to write me up, but by this time I was convinced that I was in a conversation with a moron and I have a strict policy against this kind of thing unless I am being paid to do so.
30 minutes, my ass. This is the exact same ploy their pharmacy uses. Every time I’ve been there to get a prescription, my wait time has always been between 30 and 45 minutes. Even with what appears to be a full complement of pharmacy workers back there and no one else in line before or behind me, it’s always at least 30 minutes.
The hope is that you’ll then wander the store and find something else to buy. This is why we no longer deal with WalMart’s pharmacy (this and their idiotic policy of having the pharmacist read you the instructions for taking the medicine as if you were some kind of imbecile) and go across the road to Walgreens. In Walgreens, I present the slip of paper, confirm my identity, wait all of 3 minutes and am handed my stuff.
So it was that I dropped in on the Conoco station on Main.
Within 20 minutes I had my battery tested, found to be dead and replaced. This cost me a good $50 more than what I’d have paid at WalMart, but I consider it money well spent. It will serve as reliable confirmation that Hell has frozen solid when I again attempt to have any vehicle of mine serviced at a WalMart. Such was my wrath that I actually went online, and filled out their “Contact Us” form to gripe about the miserable experience I had here.
I’ve only done this once before and the result was them getting in a shipment of Pacific rose apples for me. I hope Mister Scruffy winds up with his “write you up” thing embedded in some uncomfortable place. Whatever the case Walmart’s “Service Center” is officially OFF LIMITS to followers of the Tevir Nation.
On the other hand, it might be worthwhile to include them as a redemption center for Official Elim Tevir Hand Salutes. On this I will ponder.
In other news, the wife is off to a conference over at Chico. As usual, a nice spring blizzard is gearing up. Last year, it took her three hours to get from Livingston to Chico. I told her this time, if the roads get bad, STOP! Turn around and come home. We’ll see if she listens.
That’s it for today.