| In-Store Pickup at Future Shop | Friday, February 2, 2007 |
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Why would I want to pick up my order at a Future Shop store?
It’s fast. During store hours, you can pick up your order within three hours of placing it on futureshop.ca.It’s convenient. You can pick up your item whenever it’s convenient instead of waiting at home for a package to arrive.
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Right... Let me clarify how it actually works.
First, you place your order online, indicating that you will pick up the order at the store. Note that you can only do this if all products in your order show up as "available" on the website.
Once you place your order, you'll get an email instructing you to wait for another email stating that the order is ready to be picked up. As the website states, this happens with three hours from when you placed the order.
Here's where the actual experience veers from what they advertise. I placed my order at 11:16am on Wednesday, January 31st. I did not receive a second email from them that day, but since I was busy, it slipped my mind anyway. I still hadn't received an email by Thursday afternoon, so I logged in to the site to check the order status. It said "Checking availability". I found this a bit confusing, since I had already confirmed the availability on the site, and you can't even place the order if the items are not available. I phoned the customer service line to find out what was going on. After being placed on hold for a while, I was told I would have to speak to the store myself (1740 West Broadway location, in case a Future Shop executive is reading this). She transferred me to the main line with no instructions as to whom I should speak.
I was transferred two times before I got to someone who seemed to know what was going on. He explained that their computer system had been "down", and they were not receiving the orders. He first asked for the items numbers in my order. I said I was not going to look them up for him, and that he'd have to work from my order number. He got the order together and told me to come down to pick it up. Before I left work for the day, I received an email from Future Shop online saying that my order had been cancelled (no reason provided). Sigh...
I went to Future Shop after work to pick up my order (about 6:00pm). I went to the Customer Service area, which was where I was told to go to pick it up. There was a line up of people who all looked like they were returning things. There was a sign hanging on the far end of the counter that said "Internet Pick-up", but it was not clear if you had to wait in the same general line or not. I asked someone, and was told that I did have to wait in the same line.
While waiting, I observed that of the two people at the counter, both of them were dealing with a single person. Another employee was standing around, chatting to the person at the front of the line. I said to him, "Is there anyone else who can be called to help with this line?" He said, "No, there's not." He immediately went back to his conversation, and I interrupted him, "Can't you help?" He said, "No, I'm with the computer department."
Frustrated, I decided to just go and find the products myself in the store, and purchase them normally, thus avoiding this terribly inefficient line. I went over the section which contained my desired products only to find that it was sorted in some bizarre and random manner. Nice. I could not find either of the products I had ordered, so I reluctantly went back to the line. I must have looked for these times for a good 10 minutes, and when I got back, the line had not moved at all. Both of the employees at the counter were still helping the same, single person they were with when I first got there!
Finally, the line started moving, and I was served. After I had completed my transaction, I asked for the card to the manager of this "customer service" department. I was told she was right here, and was pointed to one of two employees who wasted so much time on a single person. I asked her to first explain why my order was not ready within three hours, as promised on their website. She flipped a monitor around to show me an arcane, text-based terminal that seemed to be stuck on a password prompt. She said their system had been down, and their IT department was supposed to have it fixed. (Why they wouldn't think to search any outstanding orders for pickup when they knew their system was down is beyond me.)
I then asked her to explain why when she could see that there was clearly a line, she and the other person there were both helping a single person. She said that the other employee didn't know how to do something, so she had to help. I asked her why then she didn't get the employee to help the next person while she did whatever took over 30 minutes to do, and she gave me a non-answer. (Perhaps she is destined for a life in politics.) I told her that for a "customer service" department, she and her staff had provided me with one of the worst displays of customer service I had ever experienced. Keep in mind that ordering online for in-store pickup is supposed to be "fast" and "convenient". Without hesitation, I can say that this order was neither fast nor convenient. In fact, it was only the opposite. What should have been a quick three-minute transaction took 45 minutes.
So, the moral of this story, is DO NOT use Future Shop's (or Best Buy's, as they are the same company) in-store pickup. In fact, do not shop at either place at all. I can't think of a single positive experience I've had at either location, and this last experience is the straw that broke the camel's back. I hereby declare that I will NEVER shop at Future Shop or Best Buy again. If I can't get what I need at London Drugs (one of the few decent places left in town), I will order online. Any shipping charge I might incur will easily make up for the time and ordeal I will avoid by not shopping at one of these awful, big-box electronic stores.
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Comments
I have affectionately dubbed "Future Shop" as "Torture Shop" because all of my cases of dealing with them has been pure "TORTURE!" - turnipHed, Monday, September 3, 2007 Have you shopped at NCIX before? - Ian Wojtowicz, Wednesday, September 12, 2007 I've had a couple experiences with Best Buy. One was lackluster, the other a bit of a circus, but nothing horrifying. With Future Shop, I seem to have found a process that works. - Todd Sieling, Friday, February 1, 2008 |  |
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