Well, I just had one of the most un-fun shopping experiences. Ever. How did it all begin? Well, our refrigerator is pretty old, and it leaks, so we have to buy a new one. Apparently my mother went to Futureshop on Saturday and put down a deposit for one. So anyway, tonight we went back to Futureshop, to do what, I'm not exactly sure, but I think it had something to do with applying for a Futureshop card so that when we bought the fridge, we would gain benefits of some sort.
Sounds simple, huh? I'm sure it would've been, too, had there been anyone available to help us. There were only two people working in the appliance deptartment, both of whom were otherwise occupied, and for some unfathomable reason we had to get the card through the appliance department. So we stood around and waited for about half an hour. Eventually we got pretty darn tired of waiting, and decided to just get a refund on the deposit and to buy the fridge elsewhere--somewhat goaded into the decision by talking with another family, a couple who wanted to buy a washing machine, but found that not only was Futureshop about a $100 more expensive, it was also more of a hassle than Home and Rural.
Sorry, that was kind of confusing, so let me explain a bit more. Basically we were already getting fed up by the lack of service. Then when my parents heard the couple talking about how they could get their washing machine at Home and Rural for a lower price, and with less difficulty, my parents combined their frustrations with the couple's story and came to the conclusion that we were wasting our time (which was true) for something that was probably cheaper elsewhere (who know's if this is true; I'd say it came from that couple's account).
Anyway, the main point is, we decided to get a refund on our deposit, so we went over to wait in the customer service line. While in line, my mother read the photocopy of the deposit receipt that she had and realized that in order to get a refund, she needed the original copy, which the salesguy from Saturday had kept. So I waited in line while my parents went to get the receipt from the appliance department. I waited, let someone go ahead of me, waited, let someone else go ahead of me, and waited some more. Eventually my mom motioned for me to go over and to stop waiting in line, so I went over to the appliance section.
After some more waiting (the two salespeople were still busy, we finally got to ask for our original receipt back. Unfortunately, it wasn't there because the (stupid) salesman from Saturday had taken it home with him. So then we had to go back to customer service to wait in line again, and of course, the line had gorwn again after I had left it.
While my mom and I waited in line, my dad cornered the manager and had some words with him. Now I must point out that even though I was pretty peeved off with Futureshop at this point, I could still be objective about the exchange, objective enough to realize that neither my father nor the manager came out very well in the discussion.
On my father's part, he was just venting his frustrations without giving the manager any ways of rectifying the situation. His tone was kind of like, "I think the service in this store sucks," so I could understand why the manager was kind of irritated, and kept asking "so what do you want me to do." At the same time, the manager acted like a total jerk. Even from the beginning I could hear that his attitude was totally antagonistic, combative, and generally not firendly and helpful. While I can understand somewhat because he had just finished listening to a couple's complaint, and because it's really not his job to simply take verbal abuse, this still doesn't change the fact that he was extremely rude right from the beginning of the conversation with my father. He didn't even seem to make an effort to be polite. And that's what peeves me off.
In the end, we wasted more than an hour in the store. Based on the experience I have come to several conclusions:
1) Never buy appliances from Futureshop or any other store where appliances do not make up a big part of the sales, because you'd probably get better service and/or prices from places that really want to sell you appliances
2) Be rational and purposeful at all times. Ask yourself, what will this accomplish? Don't complain to a manager unless you want the manager to take some specific action, or you'd like to file a complaint about a certain employee (which is what I would have done about that idiotic salesman from Saturday who took the original receipt home).
3) Be courteous (this especially applies to people working in retail jobs). Word of mouth does make a difference, so if you act like a jerk, other people will hear about it, and this is not a case where any publicity is good publicity. It's an especially bad idea to peeve off people who are/were willing to spend rather large amounts in your store. We buy a lot at Futureshop on a regular basis, but I wouldn't be surprised if my parents started rethinking this and decided to spend the few extra dollars to shop in a store with good customer relations. I know that I am definitely considering writing off Futureshop entirely and buying things elsewhere, just because of this experience.
Whew. So there you have it. Hope this post made some sort of sense, because I am still feeling quite emotional about the matter, as much as I tried to maintain some degree of objectivity in my writing.
