The Daily Whine

Whatever my whine for the day is (and sometimes a Wine as well) But also includes rants and raves about my favorite two authors - Tolkien and Lewis. Currently working on the "Why the Eagle couldn't take the ring" Theory to be published in mid January.

Sunday, September 19, 2004

Customer Service - yeah right

Whatever happened to good customer service? Is it not there because we no longer demand it. I mean if you say to McDonald's "Hey, I'm never coming back." Does it really matter?

I took my youngest to McDonald's while we were waiting for her sister to get out of kindergarten. I rarely splurge and get ice cream, but it was hot out on the playground so I decided to go for a McFlurry. Now, my daughter wanted an ice cream cone, which I gladly got her for 69 cents. I went for an oreo cookie McFlurry. For those who don't know a McFlurry is ice cream BLENDED with your choice of mix, for $1.89. For $1.20 more than what I paid for a simple ice cream cone, I received a cup of the same amount of ice cream with what amounted to the equivalent of about 2 crushed oreos sprinkled on top, NOT blended. It took the same amount of time to make this as the cone. I am inclined to wonder, what is the $1.20 for?

At Home Depot this weekend, I went to find some replacement pads for our sander. I had no idea where to find them. I walk in to the tool department slightly ahead of this other guy. A Home Depot employee walks in and says hello to me and ask the other guy if he needs help, he says no, the guy walks off. Home Depot has never been customer friendly you can rarely find anyone to help you. That same morning we had been to Lowe's. I bet 5 employees offered to help us the first 5 minutes we were there. This has been an on going trend between the two stores for years. Home Depot usually has the lower prices, but the time it cost me to find things just isn't worth it.

I quit going to Wal-mart all together for the same reasons, but unless everyone takes a stand nothing will ever change. On a good note, I did find a great little package store. It's a small privately owned store, and was tops in customer service, and I am definitely a repeat customer there. (See my This Week's Wine for that story).

Come on people in this day and age of so many stores on every corner, take a stand, refuse to shop where the customer isn't treated right.

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