Customer Service Failure

I think it’s worthwhile to note every once in a while when people or companies do an outstanding or abominable job with customer service. At this point, most of my readers are well familiar with my extreme disappointment in Best Buy service, but I’d like to add another to that list: Swann Electronics. They also do surveillance units which is why I was working with them.

I don’t know what it is with electronic companies. Dell is the reason I went and dealt with Best Buy in the first place and Best Buy has so many rules in place that it makes it nearly impossible to get help turnaround in anything less than 2 weeks. Even when they do, they refuse to help without a fee, insisting that their warranty doesn’t cover your request. And nearly every time, they are right. The funny thing is, though, that if I just went out and bashed my computer against a wall they would replace it free. So why would they refuse to just fix the original problem? I’m getting closer every day to a freak gasoline fight accident to force them into an early replacement.

But at least both Dell and Best Buy are easy to reach. I assumed when I had to call into Swann about a DVR power source that is burnt out that I would spend an excess of 30 minutes on hold. Absolutely incorrect. Instead I spend about 5 minutes or so every couple of hours trying to just reach someone or something that won’t hang up on me. They use an answering machine for their customer service desk and their entire directory is backwards. I tried emailing the web help but they referred me to a number in the directory that doesn’t even exist, insisting all the while that calling was the only way to even get the problem fixed in the first place. And all of this just to get an order number for a replacement part. Awesome. After 2 weeks of contacting Swann, I have finally gotten an order form faxed in and have yet to have my order acknowledged or a receipt given.

While we’re at it, I’d like to touch on the positives and negatives of Craigslist. Man, if you want to find something, this site is the way to go. Everything is listed on there and if you can deal with the slight crazies you can find whatever you want or didn’t want but now know that you need desperately. And then there was the guy who didn’t know what he was selling online, misclassified it, misdescribed it, and couldn’t give me any more info on it when I called. He refused to talk or help me get to his place, having already given me 2 bad phone numbers. When I saw the item and told him no thanks, he sent me a less than happy email for which I reported him to Craigslist. Great website to use, but not everyone believe the customer is right. Good luck to him ever getting that bike sold now.