And yet another customer service rant - Suncoast Video

The BBQ Pit
1

I know there have been tons of these lately, but here goes…

We were at the mall and hubby decided he wanted a copy of “Smokey & The Bandit.” We wandered into Suncoast Video, and had to special order it, since they were out. No big deal. We paid for it in full, got our receipt and were told it could be about 2 weeks. No problem.

A few days go by, someone calls and says the movie is in. Okey-dokey, we had to go out anyway, and I said we’d pick it up that evening.

We get there, show our receipt, and the pimply-faced 19-year-old assistant manager is very apologetic, he’s so sorry, but: the movie is in a locked cabinet behind the register where they keep the special order movies, and the OTHER asst. manager left and took the keys to the cabinet with him by mistake. They called him at home and left a message, but he hadn’t called or returned with the keys, so could we please come back tomorrow? Well, okay, we were both in a good mood, I’ve worked in retail, stuff happens, fine, I can come back tomorrow.

Hubby decides to look around a little, heads for the “He-Man/Car-Chase/Blow-It-Up” section, and lo and behold there are five, yes five freaking copies of “Smokey & The Bandit” there on the shelf! He grabs one, heads to the register and says, “Can’t I just take one of these?”
The assistant manager explains, that no, he can’t take one of those, our copy was special ordered, and it will mess up their inventory if we take a different copy. “Our” copy has been already checked in, since we paid for it in full in advance, blah, blah, blah…

Hubby starts to get pissed, and says, “Fine. I want to return my special order copy and buy this one. Can you do that?”
Assistant manager/Idiot keeps explaining that no we can’t just take one off the shelf, he can’t give us a refund on the special order, it will mess up the inventory…keeps rambling on.
Finally, the 16-year-old cheerleader-type salesgirl hears what’s going on and says, “Jeez, Josh, all you have to do it this…” and proceeds to make her fingers fly across the register, ding-ding, all done, she puts the movie in a bag, nice cheerful, “Sorry for the inconvenience, have a nice day, thank you” and we were on our way.

Okay, I know this is the Pit and I should have had a terrible ending to my story.
But still, you think the damn assistant manager would know what to do in a situation like that!

2

Good lord…it sounds like that girl should’ve been the assistant manager!

Why didn’t they just give you the copy of the video on the shelf, and then simply stick the one in the cupboard on the shelf to replace the one you guys bought, and ring the shelf one on as the special order?

3

That’s what we were trying to get them to do. I guess once something is checked in as “special ordered”, it gets a different code or something…when they zap it with the barcode reader thing, it credits it to a certain area, maybe?
The dipshit AM kept saying they were “shelf copies” or something like that, while “our” copy was the specially-ordered one…but when they ordered ours, they got extras since it was out of stock. Whatever.
Just another example of trying to follow the rules too closely.
“Because that’s the way we HAVE to do it, whether it makes sense or not!”

4

I actually worked those kind of stores for seven years, and I know what you went through. My guess is that somewhere down the line Mr. Pimply Faced Kid was told (probably over and over and over) by the owner or some other superior that the inventory was very, very important! Now I know, many of the kids in retail don’t take such admonitions all that seriously - maybe this one was threatened with dismissal if he didn’t watch the inventory. So of course he kept his mind on that thought alone - don’t mess up the inventory! You can see how possible it was for logic to leave his underdeveloped brain! :slight_smile:

5

See, even that doesn’t make sense-the PLU code should be the same.

Geeze, and I thought it was bad at KrapMart.

6

Why would you even bother going to suncoast in the first place? I’ve found that Sam Goody and Suncoast charge full retail for videos and DVDs, while Best Buy and Circuit City usually offer deep discounts on their products, especially on new releases.

7

My problem with the three Suncoasts in my area is that the employees know vey little about their stock. Last time I was there, I asked if they had three movies I was looking for. They couldn’t find them. I found them in five minutes.

Bedazzled(The Original)
The Abominable Dr. Phibes
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Wild World of Batwoman

Why did I ask them? Well, the store is normally in some disarray, I only had a few minutes, and I wanted to be in and out as soon as possible so I didn’t slow down my friends.

I find more accurate information about movies being released on the Internet than they seem to have, and yet they can say a movie isn’t out, even though it is on the shelf.

Don’t even get me started on their exhorbitant prices. I only go there as a last resort if I can’t find what I want anywhere else.

8

Hastur-are you a member of the info club? If so, you can get the videos at a discount…I THINK…
http://www.mst3kinfo.com
I like the movie merchandise stuff that Suncoast has, though. I got my Anya doll there, and my Titanic shirt.

9

Well, we were at the mall, hubby decided he wanted the video…I guess it was more the convenience than anything. There isn’t a Circuit City close by, and anyway, this wasn’t a new release. It was only something like $10 bucks.

10

[Al Gore Voice] Now, if I’m promoted to, assistant manager, I will keep, all special ordered, movies, in what I like to call, a “Lockbox”. Now, this “Lockbox”, can only be, opened, by my-self, or another assitant, manager, at the store. By doing this, no assistant manager, will be unable to open, the “Lockbox”.[/Al Gore Voice]
(Commas added to reproduce Al Gore pattern of speech.)

I’ll be here all week.

11

Suncoast seems to have a very wide selection of movies - if you can, indeed, find what you’re looking for. If you go into Best Buy, you might find a mainstream film at a cheaper price, but you’re less likely to see harder-to-find films, so it’s a tradeoff. Here’s another place to find films you won’t find in Best Buy-like stores: http://www.homefilmfestival.com. There’s a membership fee of $10, and then you can either buy or rent from their extensive library. Of course, if you’re buying online anyway, you can just get the mainstream films at places like http://www.amazon.com or something. Personally, I just like to walk through Suncoast and look at the stuff! :slight_smile:

12

I once tried to return something to Suncoast that was fucked up. I bought a boxed video about astronomy that was supposed to include a book and a star chart. The video was in the box, but neither the book nor the star chart were.

I went back to the store the next day and asked for a refund. Denied.

I asked to exchange it for another box that would have everything in it. Denied.

I asked the manager if the store stood behind its products. After a blank look for several seconds he said, “A sale is a sale.”

I got no response to my question about customer service.

Needless to say, I have not set foot in a Suncoast since that day about 7 years ago. That was tough at first, but thanks to the internet, they’ll probably be out of business soon anyway.

13

Since I work in a restaurant, and am expected to stick my head up my ass and eat my own shit to make any unhappy customer happier, it especially pisses me off to get bad service of any kind…

The other evening 5 friends and I ordered from Domino’s. $25 worth of food that took 1 hour to arrive and was cold when it got there keep in mind that the Domino’s is about 2 miles from where we were located When I called to complain, the manager told me that he just couldn’t believe that our food was cold…the best he could do was offer me $5 off our next order OR come and get all the cold food and replace it. I told him that I wasn’t trying to be rude, but that he wasn’t doing a very good job at trying to keep his customers happy and that we wouldn’t be ordering food from there anymore, and he turned it around like it was my fault that it was Saturday night and I should be more understanding. what an ASS!

14

Sorry to get off the original Suncoast rant. I just couldn’t resist!!

15

Not a problem, Aphrodite. I worked in retail and customer service for many years, so it just pisses me off to see really poor service. I think people who work in retail and wait-staff jobs tend to pick up on the bad service stuff faster, because they know how to solve the problem, but usually can’t do anything about it.

Mercutio…what a smart ass! :stuck_out_tongue: