Drama.. such a funny word… I use it for so many things.

Well, After my little visit with the Ashley Furniture Home Store, they promised me my chaise would be delivered on Tuesday… Yesterday. Apparently the salesman that helped us was “new”… umm didn’t your store open up just 4 days before we went in there?? Yeah, he’s new and so is just about everyone in it… anyway… He somehow messed up someone else’s order too. Someone who happened to order the same exact couch as us, on the same exact day… except he needed the chaise on the side we received and instead GOT the chaise on the side we needed… so hey! How about giving me his chaise, and giving him ours??? Yup.. so that was what was happening. Otherwise I’d have had to wait until sometime after the 15th for it to be delivered… some “rush”… Well, the manager, whose name also happens to be Ashleigh, just spelled differently, told me I would receive a call on Monday to let us know what time our chaise would be delivered… Did that happen? Hell no.

So Tuesday morning, I had already thought they forgot all about me. I had errands I needed to run, and in the hopes that they would at least call me before they showed up, I took to the roads to get things done before our storms on Wednesday. When we were about 1/2 way done with our errands, I called the store and spoke to Ashleigh. She sounded perplexed as to why I didn’t get a phone call. I really wasn’t surprised. She told me that they had me scheduled for between 12 and 4pm… Well, that’s a pretty big window, and I was only 20 minutes away from the beginning of that window. The bad thing was, I still had 2 places to go, and they were 30 minutes away from where I was. I called Daddy and asked him to log in to Vonage and make sure phone calls would come to my cell phone if I wasn’t home. We rushed through the last two errands and ran home. On our way home, we happen to see an Ashley Furniture truck passing us, in the opposite direction. All I could think was great.. we just missed them… I got home and just waited. We waiting until 3:30pm, and I finally called the store. Just as I was getting off the phone with the store, my phone beeps. It’s the delivery guys calling to make sure I was home. They were here within 10 minutes… phew! It was finally here! Now, my couch is complete… Thank goodness.

Lesson from all of this?? While I am extremely pleased with my couch, I am quite dissatisfied with the service I received after the mistake was realized. The salesperson that helped us was very apologetic, and I appreciate that. I’m just upset about the lack of the phone calls I received despite all the promises.

Needless to say, we didn’t purchase the girls’ mattress sets from Ashley Furniture… but it wasn’t because of this situation. It was because they couldn’t tell us when we would get them. They told us 2-4 weeks. We wanted to make sure the girls had them before Christmas. Instead, after an afternoon of shopping around, we purchased them from Rose Brothers Furniture on Bell Fork Rd, here in Jacksonville. The service was exceptional, and they helped us find the perfect sets in our price range… Oh, and we were able to pick them up right away too… The girls are now in their “big girl” beds… but I’ll save all of that for a new post!

Seriously!?!?!

I just do not get it. I worked for several years in customer service. I started out as a lifeguard at a local water park in high school, moved on to a laser tag arena, then to retail at 3 stores at the mall, and finally to a customer service call center for FedEx. That’s all before I got married. At FedEx, i heard stories about how a package should have reached its destination, regardless of that tornado, flood or hurricane that hit the area that it was going to. I once got a call from a shipper that was mad the package didn’t make it because the FedEx station wasn’t operating… The ROOF was torn off in a hurricane!! I didn’t expect them to understand because to everyone, their package is super important, and needs to be where it needs to be when it needs to be there. If they got to a point where no amount of explaining by a “lowly customer service agent” would do, and they asked for a supervisor, we politely obliged, placed them on hold, and called our Manager Assist Group. It wasn’t difficult, and the “MAG” as we liked to call them, were always willing to help out.

More and more these days, I call a customer service call center to deal with an issue. Sometimes the CSA is able to help me out, and sometimes the call ends with me more confused than when the issue first started… I ask for a supervisor more often than not, and rarely get one. I just don’t understand it.

Case and point. We had received a call from a telemarketing company on behalf of Comcast Communications, offering us the fastest cable internet speed they have along with their basic cable for less than what we were paying for the slowest internet speed alone… We got an appointment scheduled for the following Thursday and were pretty excited at the prospect of a faster internet speed. The next Tuesday, we got a phone call from Comcast offering us a different deal that was more expensive. I told the agent that we already had an appointment scheduled, and we were good. Then I hear.. “Yeah, about that.. it’s been canceled.” No further explanation. I was livid. So I call back and ask the agent that answered the phone what happened. He said he didn’t know why it was canceled or who canceled it, and there was no way to get that particular deal again. End of story. I asked for a supervisor, and was told he would send a request through, and I’d receive a call from a supervisor within a couple of hours. No call ever was made so I called the next day and again asked for a supervisor. The agent gave me the run around and kept trying to dodge getting me a supervisor by offering me other various deals they had going on. I wasn’t having it…

After almost an hour of holding and declining any other alternative, I was finally passed to a supervisor who made all kinds of promises. She ended up offering me a deal that was comparable, and promised to call me back the next day when all the changes had been made to my account.. I never received a call back so I tried calling her back several times, and left a voice mail for her each time. She never called me back.

Finally after 2 weeks, I called back and asked for another supervisor. This time, I refused to tell the agent anything until I got a supervisor. At this point I was tired of repeating my story time and time again. Why didn’t they just get my account number and pass me on to a supervisor. If they really wanted to know what was going on, they could read all the notes that had been typed up in my account from every other person that I talked to.

Long story short, it took a whole lot of time and a whole lot of calling to get something worked out with a supervisor…

Just today I had an issue with Apple that was really getting to me, until I finally got a supervisor who restored my faith in customer service! Last Thursday, I bought an iMac, and then Monday they upgraded the iMacs. I called yesterday and spoke with an agent that told me the various options that were available to me. We ultimately decided on me just refusing the shipment so Apple would refund me as soon as they received my order back in the warehouse. He told me to just call back to Apple once the shipment had been refused so they could note my account and start processing… So this morning I called, and was then informed by another agent I spoke to that I HAD to go through the returns process which would then take 3-5 business days before I could get a refund. I was confused about the correct process so after I ended my call with this person, I decided to call back and speak with a supervisor.

I called back and yet another agent asked for my info, and when I asked for a supervisor, she continued to go through my order and tell me that everything was going through ok for delivery today. I advised her that was not the reason I was calling, and she asked me to explain… so I did. Then she told me that Apple requires the customer to go through the proper returns process, and that she would send a mailing label through to me. I asked her why the different messages, and she began telling me that she and her colleagues are very sincere to the customers, just that sometimes they get their information mixed up. Basically telling me that the first agent I spoke to was wrong. She was ready to release me from the call, but I insisted that I speak to a supervisor. She didn’t sound happy. All I could think was “Well, if you would’ve given me a supervisor to begin with, like I had asked, you wouldn’t feel like you wasted your time with me.” I didn’t say it, just thought it.

Finally I was put through to a supervisor who told me he was a little confused as to why I was calling. I explained everything to him, and he then told me that he understood why I was so confused with the return. He told me that the first agent was indeed correct, and that the way we had chosen (refusing the shipment) was actually better in my situation. The return label route is taken when the customer has already taken possession of the shipment, and since I have not, just refusing it works better. Finally, someone that could understand what I’ve been flustered about.

He was actually really great. I told him that this was my first time ever purchasing an Apple computer, and I really had heard a lot of great things about Apple, that this just couldn’t have been this difficult to exchange the computers out after their upgrade! He helped me out with the whole situation, and let me know that he was personally going to watch the account and the current shipment, and as soon as the RTS tracking number was placed on the package, he was going to credit my cards, and give me a call so I could re-order the new iMac…. WOOHOO! I’m so happy now!!! So Thank you Apple, and Thank you Arturo for finally restoring my faith in Customer Service..