Speaking of services, I have to relate another incident that occurred a while ago at a store called Priceline. I went there to buy a pack of sanitary pads, and when I went to pay for it, the price on the cash register flashed $7.20 after she had scanned the barcode. But I distinctly remembered seeing $4.40 when I picked it off the shelf. So I told the cashier and she said she would check. After checking, it was discovered the wrong price tag was put on the shelf and that it really should have been $7.20. Still, they honoured the price of $4.40 (damn, should have bought more! ;p) and I was most impressed with that.
If that happened in Singapore, more often than not, I would just be told that it was a mistake and I would have to pay the correct price. But knowing myself, I would probably have made a case for it. Ok, probably not at that point in time so that I don’t hold up the queue. I would pay the correct price, and then write a letter or send a fax/email to the management to relate the incident. If the company has a pro-customer service philosophy, you would probably get something in return in terms of a written apology or maybe some vouchers/products!
Some people might think why bother? But I think as a customer I deserve some kind of accountability. I mean, I wouldn’t expect to get a ridiculous deal of $300 for a laptop (when it really costs $3000) because of a typo-error on a webpage which was uploaded by mistake. Something like that happened in Singapore sometime ago and there was a big hoo-ha because of that. I think the court ruled in favour of the company. It was one of those big computer companies.
As a customer, one has to be discerning too. Some offers are just too good to be true. I think an apology from the company would have sufficed for me in the above case. I’ve written in to complain about bad service and bad quality of products before, and both times I received responses from the company.
In case you think I