Service your customer???

As our final preparation for new gallery/studio which will be ready pretty soon. We were looking for some appliances like bar fridge, etc... to make sure we have enough stash of beer to get us through. Well, we don't drink while we are on the job, but certainly love to enjoy a beer or two while we are doing the retouching.

Anyway, we were at this huge electrical appliances store (please don't ask which store), and as we are carrying our baby in hand and lots of shopping in the cart. It was a quick and easy order, as we see what we need and just ask the sales staff to get fridge for us so we can pay at the cashier. We don't even ask for a discount...

Since we have all our hands full, we politely ask if the sales staff will help us to push this bar fridge (which is already on the trolley), down to the carpark for us. Well, just put it this way, we didn't even expect what was coming.... First, we were asked to purchase the additional "insurance" which we politely decline as we don't need it. Then, the response for our request came with "Uhm... the lift is over there.... with no single smile (we should say, with lots of frowning and frustration)...

We can't help to think that, were they charging too little to cut out customer service? or they will have to "upsell" to get more?

Obviously, when we always believe in servicing our client, we were so surprise with no service policy (we read the "promise" statement again on our way out, all it says is "PRICE" not "Service") So eventually, we bought from the other company, which we have absolutely different experience... Sure, we pay a little more... but what we get is beyond what we expected.

When time is bad, product lines are consumer products which can be found anywhere, pricing is the same everywhere else, what else will a store do to differentiate them from the rest? certainly won't help with unhelpful staff who is too busy chatting away with their colleague while leaving the customer on their own.

The moral of the story is without servicing the client, the company will soon realised that they have none to service.

If cheap pricing is the only selling point, we wonder if there is any point at all.