Should being a loyal return customer to a store like Future Shop be worth anything at the end of the day? When does being a loyal customer dictate that a supplier or retailer be loyal to that customer in turn? How much money spent, or how many times must one make a purchase at a store to warrant a higher degree of customer service? In an ideal world, you would be treated the same whether or not you were a ‘return’ customer, the retailer would be at least as ‘loyal’ to you as you were to them and they would do this no matter how much money you spent or how many times you made purchases. Perhaps in a slightly less that ideal world you may be better treated if you shopped at this retailer more or spent larger sums of money. On the other hand, you could be Future Shop. A larger retailer then any of its competitors, in a broad range of product markets. A retailer that has pushed most of its competitors out of business or seriously marginalized them. A retailer that now simply has no significant competition that would affect the way they conduct business. To compound that fact, look at a city like Vancouver. In many retail markets, Vancouver has a serious lack of competition. It seems quite difficult even in this city to introduce better competitiveness, owing to the lack of Advertising oppurtunity and the cost of store front space. What this amounts to is an accute lack of desire of large businesses like Future Shop to go the extra mile (or to any length for that matter) to win anybody’s business or work to keep it. All they need to do is undercut their smaller competitors and push them out of business. Guess what happens then? Now we as consumers have no choice but to buy from them and take their crap!!! What a city like Vancouver needs is a large competitor like Circuit City to come into this market and shake guys like Future Shop out of their Ivory Towers. I’ve had enough of Future Shop. Their service is horrible, and when you actually get advice from them it is only from commission motivated sales people whose only interest is to bully you into their unnecessary upsells. I can’t stand this whole song and dance everytime I go in there about upselling stereo wire and computer cables and the like. You can’t trust these guys. They are just waiting for somebody who doesn’t know better to walk in there so they can hit them with an extra 50 bucks on a sale by scaring them into buying some extra cables. Don’t listen to them!!! those same cables are available at Home Depot and Radio Shack for half the price.I’m saying it here and now, I will contact larger electronics retailers like Circuit City and I will tell them about the goldmine they have waiting for them in Vancouver. There is more than enough business to go around in this city to warrant them coming in to this market.And hopefully, it will teach Future Shop a lesson or two about earning Customer Loyalty.’, ‘They’ve lost another customer’, 0, ‘Poor Service, push commision-based salespeople and altogether poor Customer Service is reason enough to look for alternatives to shopping at FutureShop
8 Responses to “They’ve lost another customer”
I really don’t have all that much to say other than to elaborate on the previous user’s comments and add a bit to them.
1)
By adding a Circuit City to Vancouver you would be creating more competition for the same business that is already there. I imagine the amount of people that wnat to buy something but decide not to spend their money at all because they refuse to shop at Future Shop is a pretty small number. With that said, by opening another store your pushy salespeople trying to upsell will be forced to try harder and harder to get you to buy from them because they won’t have the same amount of traffic going through their stores, whether it be Future Shop, or Circuit City.
2)
On a side note, did you know that Circuit City was ranked one of the top 10 worst places for customer service?
http://www.crmlowdown.com/2006/11/the_10_best_and.html
3)
Just taking into account personal experience dealing with retail salespeople, upselling isn’t always a bad thing. Based on a case by case scenario, often times “buying the cheap one” may not be the best bet for you. I went into a store once to buy new RAM for my computer and was attracted to the stuff with the $89 price tag. I asked a sales associate to get it out of the case for me, and he asked me what type of computer i had and a couple other questions, and informed me that i had selected a type or RAM that wouldn’t be compatible with my computer. Unfortunately the RAM that would work with my computer was $109 for the same capacity, but it saved me having to come back a second time.
Terracycle Powerful Organic Plant Food…
Your post is on target. Keep it up….
If your a cheap motherf***er then don’t buy electronics because it will just break and you will be pissed and since you were so cheap and wouldn’t have bought the warranty they won’t be able to help you which they would be happy to if you had it. Their product service plan is very good. There are some restrictions given to them by manufacturers that if the product breaks under manufacturer warranty future shop is not allowed to fix it. They are required to send it to the manufacturer. And commission sales are a good thing.
-go to wal-mart and try to get customer service. oh wait you can’t they’re not on commission so they don’t care if they know their shit because they can sit there picking their nose and doing nothing and make just as much as if they were working hard.
commission sales drive associates to know their stuff, and be able to educate the customer as to why they “should” by the warranty, and a better product….in the end the customer is happier because they don’t get home and watch a fuzzy tv or have a slow as arse computer!
people like you just plain f**king suck! you are the problem with society. if your cheap and don’t want associates upselling then buy online. You go in the store with a bad attitude just so you can sit down at your computer which was probably bought there and bitch and moan!
Excuse me but since when did customer have to bow down to shoddy workman ship, bad attitudes and high prices.
Futureshop is not the be all and end all for prices. The reason most people shop their is because they are an electronic store and they have a wide selection of items. But, you can find cheap prices on some electronics that will last for years at walmart. You go to futureshop because they advertise that they are “specialists”.
So, as a consumer, you enter the store with the expectation that 1. you are being told the truth 2. you are getting a good quality product 3. you are getting a good price.
These are not our rules, these are Futureshops rules. When one of those rules are broken, shouldn’t we bitch? Don’t we have a right to call them on the promises they make.
You futureshop supporters think that we make this stuff up. This is not out of the blue stuff.
Some people scrimp and save to buy things. I personally researched my laptop for weeks, read the reviews and concluded that Futureshop was my store. Here I am 1 mth after purchase out 900.00 and have to spend another 300.00 or more somewhere else to get it fixed.
Don’t you futureshop lovers think that this is cause for a rant or two.
We voice our opinions here and everywhere else because conventional methods are so far not working and hopefully the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
So if you are ever out 1000.00 and some punk kid tells you there’s nothing he can do. Maybe you’ll be a little more considerate and understanding.
The customer may not be always right, but the customer deserves repect. The customer deserves to be treated like they come first. Not second to our cash.
And for those who say it’s not the company’s fault their employess are pricks, well think of this, they set the guidelines of hiring, they dish out the surveys, they read the complaints, but still these people work there. Nothing is done about their attitudes. Nothing changes. So with that the company is liable because your employees are supposed to be a reflection of your business.
We as employees did not make your computer, nor did Future Shop as a company. We as employees would have told you without product protection, only the manufacturer could resolve reliability issues after the return and exchange period. So don’t bitch to someone who actually cannot do anything and call up the manufacturer… They have the grease your looking for. If you broke your laptop… you cant expect anything! If you find a product service plan which covers something breaks because of physical abuse, the company who sold that to you wont be in business to honor it. That’s just not a sustainable business plan.
P.S. to Admin
There’s lots of competition in every city. Like you mentioned; these companies have higher costs and therefore have less exposure. If you have enough time to either create or at least monitor this site, you should at least have enough time to shop around and find the salesperson (regardless of which store) who you feel most comfortable with. You shop at future shop because its convenient and affordable. Unfortunately it is hit or miss because the industry continues to loose passionate experts to lower and lower costs. Future Shop does everything in their power to instill the Customer For Life mentality in all employees. Unfortunately some employees try to use the system to their advantage at the sacrifice of the system and community. These people aren’tusually kept as an employee… For the same basic reason, I’m sure we’re okay with loosing you as a customer.
Thanks.. but the post is not mine, there was a db crash back in 05 and I just posted a bunch of the saved posts, and we all know that WP was not the best back then.
Something to say?
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oh man this is pathedic. since when did going to buy a pair of cables become a fucking procedure that requires a retail store to role out the red fucking carpet for you when you walk in?
listen, i agree. customer service has gone down hill… tremendously. but let me ask you something, do you REALLY think circuitcity going to vancouver is going to change anything? its not the company that is giving you bad service its the peopel that work there. I hate to say it but the people that work there are the people from YOUR city, a.k.a. “goldmine”. So when your precious circuitcity opens up, hires the same type of retards futureshop does… it doesn’t matter if the company gives you a complimentary handjob with every purchase… the service will still suck (and probably so will the handjob).
I will also agree with you that futureshop tries to upsell left, right and center. But look at it this way:
Take a business owner… lets say that business owner is you.
So, Mr. Business owner, you sell… let’s say.. forks and knives. Your entire store is devoted to selling forks and knives. Now, high amounts of customers, good profit, and 11 years later your business is booming.
UH-OH. Guess who decides to open up accross the street? Another fuckin forks and knives shop. At first, you panic. But then you think to yourself, “wait a minute, i’ll blow these fork fuckers out of the water.” And so you do.
HOW DO YOU DO IT?
Offer lower prices.
AND HOW DO YOU DO THAT? *without going bankrupt
Sell three different models of forks
Let’s see here, you got your TOSHIBA fork, it’s alright. Made out of plastic, but its affordable, so you know you are going to sell lots. However due to the competitive fork market, you lose lots of profit from selling it for so damn cheap.
Then you got your PANASONIC fork, and oh man- its got a titanium handle and stainless steel end. You know you won’t sell many, but when you do sell them it makes up for the profit you lost selling the TOSHIBA fork AND gives the customer a better fork experience.
But then you have your SONY fork, and this fork is the god of all forks. Its got a reenforced stamped steel handle with carbon fibre trim, and a logo that says sony. You know you’re not going to sell many because it is TRIPLE the amount of the toshiba fork, but when you do sell it, 1. You will make up for profits lost due to the competitve market thus stay alive, and 2. the customer that had enough money to spend $499.99 on forks will enjoy their meals even more.
The point of this gay little scenario is to get the point accross that when you walk into a retail store to buy a dvd player., yhe cost the store had to pay to get the automatic doors to open to the cost to pay the guy to sell it to you had to come from somewhere. So, the small chance that you offer the better $129 dvd player over the $80 one and the customer will take it… you’re going to do it. It’s called strategic retail operation.
That is all… sorry if i confused you with my fork analogy.
Left by boofrikityhoo on November 6th, 2006