Thursday, November 20, 2014

Oh Christmas Tree

Last night was supposed to be an exciting time.  My wife and I travel a lot over Christmas and Thanksgiving, so we like to get our Christmas tree as early as possible.  We got word that the Mulberry, FL, Walmart had trees, so we made plans to go Wednesday after work.  We arrived around 6:30.  They had limited trees, but we immediately found one that we loved.  It was big, full, and we imagined it fitting perfectly in our home.  We were ready to buy, take it home, and spend the night decorating it! We looked around and saw no workers in the garden center, so we went inside to request assistance.  An elderly cashier, who was friendly at the time, said, “No one is out there?  He should be.”  She came out looking for him, couldn’t find him, and had him paged.  This was at 6:45.

We waited.  And waited.  Eight minutes later I went back inside.  The cashier was with a customer, but she saw me.  She said, “I paged him.”  I told her, “I hope someone comes soon.  I’d hate to leave and get one somewhere else.”  I was serious, and I was hoping she sensed I wasn’t happy and was ready to leave.  But, her response a simple, rude, “Oh well.”

Frustrated, we waited again another ten minutes outside.  Did I mention that it was a cold, windy night?  Did I also mention that I am recovering from an upper respiratory infection and in middle of a Z pack?  I then called Walmart, hoping they could page someone to come out.  The lady that I talked to seemed rather confused, not in the story, but that the store had Christmas trees!!  Apparently that was news to her.  When she finally somewhat understood what I was saying, another page went out for assistance.

Ten minutes went by and still nothing.  We stood by the Christmas trees looking silly…and cold.  My wife decided to go inside and talk to Customer Service.  The lady that she talked to didn’t offer sympathy.  Rather, she said that the garden worker was, and I quote, “On a break now.  You’ll have to wait until his break is over.”

Seriously?  She texted me, and I told her we needed to leave.  She asked the manager for a discount if we did stay.  The manager offered a…get this…whopping 10% discount!  We could’ve saved $4 on our $40 tree!  No thanks.

We then left for Home Depot.  We wasted 30 minutes of our time but were determined to get a tree.  We were unhappy though.  And cold.

When we arrived at Home Depot, we saw their trees.  We also saw a worker who very politely greeted us.  He showed us around, ask us what we where looking for, trimmed our tree, tied it to our car, and gave us watering tips.  Now this is customer service!

We arrived home with a beautiful tree, and we spent the same amount of money as we would have at Walmart.  More so, we saw the customer service difference in the two stores.  Our night started on a sour note and ended with a wonderful story to tell about the customer service of Home Depot.  Thank you Artie!


Walmart needs a serious revamping in their customer service policy.  This is unacceptable.  No customer should ever be “stranded” outside, in the cold, and ignored like that.  It showed complete disrespect, and showed that my wife and I, the customers, did not matter.  Companies like Home Depot, Chick Fil A, and Publix value quality customer service.  After last night, I question whether or not Walmart does.