I was so mad today.
Even a complementary umbrella and clock radio later I am still ruffled.
In speaking to a procurement officer at a local parts company I ended up paying BDS $200 for a part that cost US $11.00.
To make a long story short here were my peeves with the whole transaction:
1. It took two weeks to get the part in the island after I had been promised it would take a few days.
Lesson: Never over promise and then under deliver. It's the other way around.
2. The procurement person was blaming the sales staff. The procurement officer argued that it was due to the part being out of stock that it took so long. The sales department said it was because they gave me the only receipt and that the procurement officer refused to order the part until he got a copy, which was a week later!
Lesson: Keep your internal issues internal and don't pass the buck in front of the customer. Fact is I've been very happy with the sales staff up until the point when I needed to have the part procured and that is not their job. And for heaven's sake DO NOT ARGUE/ GET ON THE DEFENSIVE WITH THE CUSTOMER!
3. I was very firm in diagnosing the problem to the officer since I had noticed with great concern the lack of experience the cashiers had with processing my 'special order'. The officer denied this yet he was able to experience it first hand when I turned up to pay for the part as they still had no clue as to how to bill me for the balance. He later apologized, gave me an umbrella and a clock radio (very discretely so the other customers couldn't see, he said) and stated that many of the staff were new and that training was a possible solution.
Lesson: PR is not a panacea for bad service and ineffective processes. Thanks for the umbrella and the other gadget but what I really needed was a good experience along with the hopefully good product.
This company really needs to look at TQM or some other method of reviewing and constantly revamping their service. There is no excuse for getting it wrong. Especially if I had to pay a deposit up front.
Which brings me to my last pet peeve - how in heaven's name can you tell me you get paid for procurement and feel comfortable giving a customer a best case scenario estimate? I'd rather you give me the worst case and then may give me some money back in my pocket!
And his excuse for how off the estimate was - from approx. BDS$ 90 to a grand actual price of $245 - was that he didn't know how much the item would weigh or the size! Then don't give me a estimate until you do! After some cajoling I got it down to $200 - over 100 per cent more than I was originally quoted!
I'm so serious. Service in Barbados is not fit for my son's potty. Whatever happened to those yellow smiley face stickers in the shape of Barbados that were being given away the other day?
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