Youngest son wanted a toy badly. Again. As usual, he was boring his sisters and me with his infamous "I NEED a toy...". As I was in no mood to argue with him, I made him sacrifice one of the things he had wanted for a long time in exchange of this particular toy. After some bargaining, he got his wish. Excitedly, he picked up a toy that he had been eyeing since we entered the department store about half an hour earlier. Since it was Saturday, the queue to the checkout counter was impossibly long. So I made the mistake of not asking the guys to check whether the toy was working well.
Which was not. Son discovered it in the car, halfway home, when he put the batteries in. As expected, he threw tantrums, and I promised to take the toy back to be replaced the next day. Anything, as long as I got my peace and quiet back! "What if they don't want to accept it back?", he demanded. "We'll worry about that tomorrow", I said. But in my heart, a whisper of doubt started. In some places in KK, they just don't allow this kind of thing.
On Sunday, I took the toy back to the store. Another long queue at the checkout counter. The doubt about whether or not they would swap the toy with a good one poked its ugly head again. And despite my normal self (I think I'm normally much nicer :)), I was beginning to visualize possible ugly scenarios right there at the counter. The guy would say to me "it's your fault for not having it checked when you paid for it yesterday". I'd say to him "oh really? What kind of store is this with this kind of policy? Don't you know that customer should always be right?" Not good enough. Another response. "If you say so. I'll just take a picture of this toy, post it on the internet so people know you sell lousy stuffs". And on and on nasty responses played in my head.
Finally, it was my turn. I explained the problem, and a young guy took the toy without a word from me. And the dialogues in my head grew more intense. After a few minutes, he returned and told me that "yes, the toy is faulty and we'd replace it with a new one". I looked at him with disbelief. It took me a moment to realize that I'd been playing long nasty dialogues in my head for nothing! It dawned on me that I'd been really nasty for no reason. Ashamed of myself, I quietly let him do the swap, showed me how the toy worked, and bagged it for me. I thanked him meekly after, saying that "it's my fault for not having it checked yesterday". Served me well for having been such a jerk!
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TataJane
5 comments:
Very, very insightful! Funny, yes. But that's typical me... most of the times!
It's not your fault to have imagined such things, Verone. We might not like to admit it, but face it, more than often what your have 'played' in your mind is (alas) the reality of how stores 'work' in most parts of this world. Hmm..isn't it a good relief finding out shops that serve good customer service do also exist?
Rem- :) it can't be helped, I think!
Gunaqz- I'm glad you said that! Makes me feel less evil :)...but it is sadly true that most stores (at least in Sabah) still have a long way to go in terms of offering good customer service.
Looks like Customer Service at that side have much improvement to do. The law says customer is eligible for refund or replacement eventhough the store put up signs that says not refund or exchange allowed after purchase
That's the thing smallkucing. If one doesn't insist for a refund or exchange of goods here, normally it would just go unnotice....sad :(
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