It’s been a long long time since I’ve taken time here to bitch about something. Years in fact. Here is a saga with Dell and then Comcast . But sometime something happens you just gotta vent…
So, we are sitting on a aging fridge and decided it was time to do a bit of an upgrade. The wife and I walk into Lowe’s last Friday pick out what we want, set up a delivery for Sunday and walk out in 1/2 an hour. Easy peasy right? No fucking way pal……. Lowe’s is just getting started with me.
We get that standard “2 hour delivery window” call from XPO Last mile and Home Delivery around 6:30 Saturday telling us they would be here “between 2-4 Sunday” . This surprise me because last time I did this with Lowe’s, they delivered themselves. Apparently Lowe’s has decided putting their delivery fate in the hands of people who probably would be unable to manage a fraternity gangbang in a whorehouse is a shrewd move.
The wife and I look at the kids schedule and decide she will skip my daughter’s soccer game to be home for the delivery. At 3:50 she texts it has not come yet so I call….. after waiting on hold the women tells me she is texting the driver for an update. I say ok and she tells me she will call me back when she has an answer.
It is not yet clear to me “I’ll call you back” is XPO Last mile and Home Delivery’s way of saying “go eat shit pal, you’ll get your fridge when we decide to drop it off” or something equally as profane.
At 4:15 the wife has come to the realization they aren’t coming and takes off for my boys hockey game so she does not miss everything because of the fridge.
At 6:15 XPO does in fact call me back…… “we aren’t coming today” ….. No shit I say. They then tell me I’ll get another call later Sunday night for Monday delivery. I’m annoyed but WTF things happen.
No call comes Sunday night so I leave a message Sunday night and then call Monday am. Delivery will be “sometime Tuesday”. Now I am pissed. I ask when on Tuesday and they tell me I’ll get another call tonight with another window. I explain that doesn’t work. I scheduled the delivery for Sunday because I knew someone would be home. I say I’d like it today please…. “let us check and call you back” they say (see above on “call you back”).
So I call back again a 9:15 and ask to talk to a manager. I get the delivery manager (or a vagrant they found in the break room stealing donuts) to talk to me. I’ll remind you each time I call I have to run through the whole story again. He says. let me check and I will call you right back (see above)
An hour later with no return call I call Lowe’s figuring they might be able to help. After all , I am guessing they have some interest in a $3500 fridge?? Maybe?? I speak to a very nice person who informs me the delivery company’s truck broke down yesterday and 6 deliveries did not get made. “So, why didn’t they call a tell us that? My wife would not have sat around waiting for hours??????” She of course has no answer because Lowe’s has outsourced their final customer engagement on big ticket items to people who simply don’t give a rats ass about Lowe’s customers.
We are now at 10:30 am and she says she will fire off an email to the manager over there and he will get back to me (see above)….
Tick, tock, tick, tock…(that is hours passing without a return call).
Now I am pissed…. I ask myself. “Why are you going through this? Our current fridge is not broken, we just got a standard LG and I can get one at HD, Sears, Amazon and even JC Penny now…why the hell am I chasing this one?” I don’t have a good answer for myself so I decide if they can’t deliver today, I’ll just cancel it…I can’t reward this shit with a complete sale for them.
So, I make one final call to XPO Last mile and Home Delivery because I still don’t know, after all this time, whether or not they will deliver the fridge today. “Nope” the women who answers tells me “sometime tomorrow”. Fuck it….. “I’d like to cancel the fridge please”…… “You’ll have to call Lowe’s” they tell me, “we just deliver them”…. “No you don’t” I say, “that is the issue….”
So I call Lowe’s and ask to talk to the store manager. I figure I at least owe them the chance to fix it at the end. I don’t know why I feel this way but someone can be the hero here and fix this…. (cue Bonnie Tyler). Do I get the store manager? NOPE… I get “customer service”. Apparently “customer service” means, “whatever happens, no one talks to a manager”. I walk through the whole story and again ask to speak to the store manager or ANY manager. “They are busy”… Well then I’d like to cancel my fridge…..
“ok”…that’s it
No attempt whatsoever to salvage the sale or get someone who could…… none….what……so …..ever….
Here is the best part….
At 2:15, not more that 15 minutes after I cancel, the XPO Last mile and Home Delivery manager calls me back. 5 hours after I first asked to talk to him and 4 hours after Lowe’s sent him an email. I proceed to tell him the story and he proceeds to blame Lowe’s. Really?
“Is it Lowe’s fault your truck broke down?” …..”um, no”
“Is it Lowe’s fault you did not contact me to tell me not to sit around waiting?… “um, no”
“It is Lowes fault I’ve called probably half a dozen times and not got a call back?” … “um, no”
“Is it Lowes fault it has taken you personally 4-5 hours for you to respond to messages and emails?” … “um, no”
“So, exactly how the hell is this Lowe’s fault??” He then launches into an obtuse explanation of delivery tickets, map routes and truck availability, none of which I am buying.
“Well, doesn’t common sense tell you if you can’t delivery 6 items because a truck breaks down on Sunday that you probably should be delivering them Monday??” I catch myself realizing “common sense” and XPO Last mile and Home Delivery are obviously mutually exclusive items.
“Well” he answers and then again muttering and stuttering babbles a wholly nonsensical explanation before I cut him off….
“Just stop….”
“Okay”…
“Goodbye”… I hang up.
Seriously Lowe’s?? I remember ordering a grill from Lowe’s about 5-6 years ago. It came fully assembled the next day in a nice white and blue Lowe’s delivery truck. It was right on time and they hauled the old one away. Could not have gone any easier. That is why We went back this time
When you are selling big ticket items, and the last person who comes into contact with your goods and customers is a company that clearly does not care AT ALL, you have a problem. This isn’t about a truck breaking down, shit happen. I was perfectly ok getting the fridge today. This is about countless unreturned calls, promises broken and a general run around (or incompetence). It is also because not a single person “was in charge” and could help. Everyone had to “check with someone else” (but I could not just talk to that “someone else”) and everything was someone else’s job/fault. Not a single person had the ability to fix the issue (or cared to) or even give me a definitive answer one way or the other (or cared to).
Utter ambivalence. Even when I called to cancel, the women at Lowe’s acted as if I was returning a $7 screw driver, not a $3500 fridge.
Suffice it to say Home Depot will probably sell me the fridge now and the washer/dryer we will be in the market for next.