12 August 2009

Where Has Honor and Customer Service Gone.

Many of you may have seen the Best Buy sale online of a 52" Samsung flat screen TV for $9.99. As soon as I heard about it I must admit I immediately got online and attempted to purchase the TV. Some of you may have done the same thing.

I was not completely surprised when I was not able to purchase the TV. They had soon realized their mistake and found ways to block the purchase until they were able to get the item off the Internet. I later learned in the news that the TV was back on at $1800.00, about half the price it would normally have sold for. I assume that was their way of making up for the mistake.

Ironically it would seem that people lost trust in the company because that afternoon their stocks fell by 24 cents. Not much but when you add it up across the board it was a hit in their pocket.

Maybe it was a disgruntled employee who said I will show them. Maybe it was just a simple technology mistake. The bottom line is that though they want to blame technology it comes down to human error.

Now had we found the same error in the story they would have quickly changed the mistake but would have been forced to honor the price.

This is my issue, where has customer service gone? Where is has the customer is right? We have lost somethings when it comes to customer service I believe. We hide behind technology and blame it when things go wrong. Yes there would have been a cost to the company but they would have kept more customers. I have considered that I may only go to them if they are the last place to shop.

Stand behind the mistake not behind a disclaimer. Your more likely to make more money because of the costumers you won and kept then would have cost you in the loss because of the price of the TVs.

1 comment:

  1. I find myself wishing for the old ways more and more lately. I guess living in the city (Daegu) has made me yearn for home (the swamps). Daegu is a small city by comparison, but I was born and bred with blue tick hounds and beat up old trucks. I wish we'd all turn back the clocks, a little, and be more honest about who we are, where we're going, and what really matters in life!

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