Thursday, February 26, 2009

Customer Service Reviews

Side note before I begin: I love opening my blog and seeing Jemaine on the front page from my Valentine's Day post. There's nothing like a little Flight of the Conchords to make my day. Anyway, on to the post.

I've recently had experiences with the customer service side of two big nationwide companies that I'd like to share because one was really good and the other was not so much. The bad before the good though. I'm speaking of Target. Yes, I know, I love it too. Where else can you buy cereal, batteries, and the cutest shoes you've ever seen under one roof? But, I have recently become disenchanted for two reasons. Did you know that they don't do ship to store? At pretty much every store in the whole world except for Target, you can order things either online or in the store and have it delivered to your local branch, and avoid shipping costs. This is particularly nice for large items. We received a gift card to buy a rocker from Target and since our local Target does not carry rockers, we had to order it online. The worst part? The shipping charge was $75!!! That was over half the price of the rocker itself. I was appalled, but what could I do since Target does not offer ship to store for free?

The second Target experience was this week when I tried to return some items I received at a baby shower. Did you know that at Target, if you don't have a gift receipt (which people rarely give these days) you can only return two items twice a year, totaling $35? What kind of deal is that? The money from things I return will still go to the store because they put it on a gift card, so I don't understand them making me keep things that I don't need and that they can resell. Moral of the story: give gift receipts for things you give people from Target!

The last story is a good one. It's about Verizon. In an act of sheer brilliancy, I washed my phone in the washing machine yesterday. Yes, I know it seems nearly impossible to miss that you're putting your phone into the washing machine with your clothes, but I did. This sent me into a panic because B was out of town and I am now two weeks away from my due date and my cell phone is my only phone. So, I got dressed and rushed to the nearest Verizon store. The guys in there were super-nice. I don't know if it was the distressed overly-pregnant lady card that I played or what, but they hooked me up. They gave me a "loaner" phone and charger for no charge and had me set up with my insurance (thank the Lord!) to have a new one delivered to me today. All in all, I felt very well taken care of by Verizon, and will continue to be a satisfied customer despite the lack of iPhones offered by them.

So, those are my customer service stories. Just thought I'd share in case you run into the same thing one day.

2 comments:

Melissa said...

We had similar bad experiences with Target from our wedding registry, so we didn't bother to register with them for the baby. Babies R Us has been great. I even had an item that was not on our registry, that I decided to return later, and it had been past the 90 days return policy since it had been given to us. Since we have a registry there, they took it back anyway and gave us store credit.

Love Target, hate their customer service!

BDish said...

I was walking into a store in the mall yesterday and heard FOC's Ladies of the World. I laughed because shopping to the sounds of FOC is so fun! Plus I wondered if anyone around me really understood what they were listening to. :)