I think you should keep going up the ladder until you can find someone who can set the management straight at this store. I don’t necessarily think it is Future Shop to blame here but a very unprofessional manager who needs to be reprimanded then fired. If you can’t find satisfaction going this route then… yes… I will have to agree that Future Shop does indeed SUCK.

PS… I heard a rumor that Future Shops’ days are numbered… you’d better hurry!

Left by ch133 on January 21st, 2009

Well, I know this only makes two anecdotes, but I was treated basically the same way by a Future Shop manager in an entirely different city. I see your experience was with a Future Shop in Edmonton; mine was in a suburb of Vancouver.

I would say this manager was much more overt about his contempt for a customer asking the shop to make good on a warrantee. He had obviously been trained to belittle and intimidate such customers. This much was obvious to me because I was queued in line to speak with him, and the fellow he was talking to stormed off angrily about his laptop warrantee (see the other horror stories on this site). When it came to my turn to make an authorized warrantee claim on an LG washing machine, he tried to dupe me with a lower model. I made my case to have the proper replacement model (like for like functionality), and he acquiesced, saying that since I was “pleading and begging” — I kid you not, this chump actually used those very words — he would magnanimously grant it to me. I actually look like a kid, so this must have encouraged him to try bullying me, but I would say that this sort of personality is built into their candidate profile for management. He’s what I would call a pitbull — a danger to society off leash and agressive at best on leash.

I’ve posted my story elsewhere on this site, but I can summarize by saying I was fed up on the 9th or 10th call with this guy so I decided to let go of my nice guy tendencies and unload on him in no uncertain terms. I gave him an ultimatum to resolve a delivery and installation issue (believe me, they try to screw you at every turn) . Either he would fix it fairly or I would tell the entirely true story to the local press. Believe me, BC has a good reputation for uncovering consumer watch news and there are reporters chomping at the bit to get a hold of a story like this. It’s a classic Goliath trying to screw over the little guy story.

I finally had to call their head office and requested specifically to be recorded over the phone in what I had to say, and to escalate the issue as high as it would go. Like with asbestos and big tobacco in the past, I think Future Shop’s warantee business is a very likely candidate for a group action lawsuit.

So back to this manager thing. I’ve come to believe that the corporate culture at Future Shop, whether intentional or not, tends to favour promoting aggressive, ambivalent, egocentric candidates to management. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them comments on my comments. Be that as it may, I’ve also come to realize that there is an extreme deficit in trying to understand the customer or trying to empathize with the customer. Whether this can be traced back to the interviewing process, personnel policy, qualification templates or exams, or just plain lack of senior managment talent, the result is publicly obvious. A site like this exists, and the general word on the street is that Future Shop lacks in the customer empathy department. In my opinion, they also lack in technical knowledge because I’ve talked to a “camera expert” who basically didn’t understand aperture or know the real difference between optical zoom and digital zoom (either that or he was trained to obfuscate the difference in order to pawn off one for the other just to make a sale).

So, after having shopped at Future Shop in Vancouver since hounding my mom to buy my first electronics from them at age 12, I’ve since ended my relationship with them. My record is still there. I believe I have spent over $30,000 at Future Shop in my lifetime, but they have succeeded in turning me not only into a dissatisfied customer, but a watchful advocate of those whom they victimize.

Future Shop has dishonestly and ambivalence built into its culture, however it got there. This is a fact that can be supported by mass evidence, so if there is a Future Shop advocate or employee out there that wants to dispute this in writing, go right ahead and put up the challenge for a lawsuit — it will be very public, very revealing of dishonestly and passing the buck, and utlimately a very costly loss in both reputation and revenue at a tough economic time for retailers.

Left by nice_guy on January 22nd, 2009