I refuse to be one of those parents that has a kid and then suddenly can’t find anything else to talk about with people. So, with that in mind, let me tell you about my dishwasher.
Wait, don’t leave yet.
We have a dishwasher that has systematically had features stop working over the last few years. The cost to fix it was estimated at $300 on up. So I set out to get a new one, quickly, since doing dishes by hand isn’t on my radar screen at the moment. I checked the usual suspects Lowes, Sears and Home Depot. I found a good deal on one at Home Depot and told the sales woman “wrap it up!”
Nearly TWO HOURS LATER she had finished the entire sale from the time I first walked in and started talking to her to the time I had paperwork and was on my way out the door. It was at that point that I noticed the price was off by $25 because of a sticker they had mistakenly left on the display floor for a promotion that was now over.
After a bit of discussion, she agreed it was fair to give me the extra $25 off but admitted it would be a pain to cancel the order in their computer system. She began to frantically look for a solution to this problem. Her brilliant idea was to hand me a parts kit, worth $20, and have me return it at a later date.
Knowing that my wife and son were at home expecting me to be home nearly 3 hours earlier, I agreed.
However, the whole thing ate away at me. I got poor service, had someone argue with me over the price that was clearly marked on the floor and then spent a good 30 minutes waiting for her to find a way out of having to re-enter something in her computer system.
As a consumer, my only real method of communicating my satisfaction with a company is with my spending dollar. With that in mind, I went back to Home Depot and spent another 30 minutes backing out of the transaction - 29 of those minutes were watching an employee navigate a computer system.
I drove 2 blocks down the street to a mom-n-pop type store and found the same washer for $30 less than the price advertised (which, remember, I never really got) at Home Depot. I also saved $80 on the install and suddenly didn’t need all the permits and tool kits that the Home Depot woman insisted were required.
It reminded me how good some of these stores really are and how much more fun it can be to shop for things at them. I need to make an effort to shop at places like that more often.
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