Customer Service Twilight Zone

Sometimes I'm just taken by surprise when it comes to customer service. In this case, a Dutch "bricks" warehouse of name and fame, that is actually quite active in the "clicks" department... ie. the Internet.

I needed to get some pricing information on a product they were selling. Their site offered the possibility of sending a question by e-mail, so I did. It was just a simple question: "what does this set cost?"

You just have to love the ease of the Net!

Although it's a saturday, I received a mail within a couple of hours. Not bad! I quickly opened the mail and started to read.

At that moment, I felt slipping into the twilight zone. Although courteous, the lady on the receiving end of my question replied with this bit of non-information:

"Thank you for your message.

For this information, I advice you to call our information number XXXX-XXXX (€0,20/minute).

Kind regards,..."

Excuse me?

C'mon. I wasn't asking a difficult technical question. I just wanted to know a price. Have they split up their customer service team into offline and online, and decided to keep the latter team in the dark? Then again, maybe they we're all in the dark!

I didn't call the number. I didn't want to take the risk to spend many minutes (at €0,20/minute) with yet another clueless person. I just went to the store and asked the sales person there. It took just 20 seconds of her time, and 30 minutes of my time driving there.

I think I will buy the product though. It's just to good a deal to pass up.

But their customer service... Ugh!

 

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