“A two part horror story”

Part One
In early January I brought my laptop into Staples. I told them I thought I was having a resource issue and could they look into it. The person in their Easy Tech department took a look at my laptop and could clearly see it was not working properly and said they could do a complete diagnostic on my laptop for $69.99 to let me know what is wrong. I specifically asked him what happens if you don’t find anything wrong. He said it would be no charge. Several days later they called me back to say they could not find anything wrong so it “had” to be that I had some corrupted files in my operating system. That was the conclusion of their “diagnostic.”  I  asked them which files. They said they had no idea but that since they couldn’t find anything wrong, it must be corrupted files! They then offered to do a complete reinstall of my operating system (for a significant additional fee, of course) and said if they would do the reinstall, it would fix the problems I was having.

 
I said no thanks because I knew I didn’t have any corrupted files (I did several diagnostics and clean-ups on my own before I brought to Staples) and I’m not a computer novice. I then went to the Geek Squad and told them about my problem and that I thought it was a resource issue. They told me to just add more memory. I installed more memory and my laptop is now working perfectly.

 
Lesson one: never bring your computer to Staples Easy Tech for tech support.

Part Two
Shortly after the fiasco in Part One, I called Staples customer support. They have a special phone number for the “Office of the President.”  When you call you always get a message that they are busy, but a recording comes on and says “Your call is very important to us… blah blah blah”?

On my first call on January 14, I spoke to Cathy. She told me that someone would call me back within 3 business days and that they take all complaints seriously. I guess they don’t understand the meaning of seriously because I never heard back from anyone. On January 23, I again called the “Office of the President” and this time I spoke to Erika. She again said someone would get back to me shortly. You guessed it. No one ever called me back. On January 31, I again called the “Office of the President” and this time I got to speak to Karen. Karen told me that she was contacting Erika and that Erika would call me back within 30 minutes. By now I think you’re getting the picture. I never heard back from Erika. On February 1, I again called the “Office of the President,” this time I had the honor of speaking to Bonnie.

The “Office of the President” must be very big since I have now spoken to Cathy, Erika, Karen, and Bonnie. However, the question remains, what the hell are they doing in the “Office of the President” Ah! But I digress.

So getting back to Bonnie, she again told me she was contacting Erika immediately by phone and email (again, it must be a very big “Office of the President” since apparently none of the staff have direct contact with each other) and that Erika would call me by the end of the day, at the latest. You guessed it. No call back from Erika. I’m nothing if not persistent (and maybe a little bit into self-torture) so I decided to call back the “Office of the President” again. Let me remind you again that all along I’ve been getting this nice message that “my call is very important to them.” However, I must admit that by this time I’m beginning to have my doubts about this. I guess that besides being persistent, I’m a slow learner.

So on February 2, I called the “Office of the President” for 5th time two weeks and this time I got to speak to my old friend Bonnie, again. She told me that she going to get me to Erika, immediately. Unfortunately, a couple of minutes later Bonnie got back on the line to tell me the Erika was not available!

I gave up, Staples beat me down. I just told Bonnie not to bother anymore and that I had called my credit card company and stopped payment on the fee for the Diagnostic that was done on my laptop and that they should go ahead and do whatever the “Office of the President” recommends they do under these circumstances.

Lesson Two: Don’t expect to ever get any customer satisfaction from Staples!

I apologize for not writing on a Human Resource topic of value as I usually do but I felt this incident could not go unnoticed.