It’s good to see that our local paper, The Tacoma News Tribune cares about how consumers are being treated by giant corporations.

Tonight I received a call from Kim at the Tacoma News Tribune (TNT). I don’t know absolutely for certain that it was from the TNT because the caller ID was blocked but Kim sounded authentic, anyway. And she seems to have done some thorough reporting on the story.

If she is bogus, then I’m going to have some egg on my face, but hey, I’m going to run this out and see where it goes.

Apparently I owe the CompUSA sales manager, Ian, a major apology and retraction because according to Kim, the TNT contacted the CompUSA Human Resources departement to verify that I spoke to Ian and he was not working on Thursday when I called.

To keep the information accurate on this blog, I went back to part 1 and struck — not removed — Ian’s name and added a bolded statement that apparently I was in error about speaking to him. However, before anybody starts calling me a liar, this doesn’t change the rest of the story at all, just remove one person’s name and insert another under the hat of “manager” (or assistant manager, etc) because I don’t know which manager I spoke to precisely. The call lasted three minutes, it wasn’t a long discussion. I didn’t ask for a name, but a name was given and I thought “Ian” sounded correct when Nancy asked me the next day, and that’s the name that I went with in this story. I’ve learned through this that I’l be much more careful about names actually used in the future unless I am absolutely certain the name of the person. My bad there, Ian, please accept my apology.

As for the person who I did speak to.

He was a younger adult male (I’d say in his twenties by the tone and timbre of his voice), that much I can confirm from memory with precision. The name? Well, that’s a bit more difficult because I didn’t think to write it down when having a three minute brief conversation (keep reading).

I will probably never learn who I actually spoke to on Thursday, but I just pulled my Vonage VoIP records to see what time precisely that I called and I can narrow that down, see below:

You’ll note that I actually called three different times. This was because I was having some trouble figuring out how exactly to get to the store manager on duty and not talk to somebody across the country. These corporation phone systems suck for customers and are not convenient, what idiot designed them and thought they were customer-friendly? The customer wants to pick up a phone and call a local store, not call somebody online from across the country or play a video game on their phone to get to the store. The number for the local store should lead to the local store. Duh.

The reporter, Kim, also seemed to misunderstand the tone of the article as me being angry toward the Tacoma CompUSA store.

No, no, no.

No, that’s wrong. Let me be clear about this: I am not angry now nor was I then with the actual Tacoma CompUSA store or the employee, Nancy, that dealt with me on Friday. Nancy was very polite, courteous and professional and deserves a raise, not admonishment of any kind, for her treatment of me. I was not being an irrational customer or screaming and being an idiot, but I was doing my best begging and she was a real trooper. She tried her best to help me but we were both DENIED.

Look, she even wrote down and signed a piece of paper to indicate they refused to set aside or earmark a copy of TIGER. The exact quote is: ” can not pay for TIGER and pick it up at 6:00 PM” and you can clearly see the paper and signature pictured at the beginning of this blog entry above.

My prior “InCompetence” references — and the anger I felt — comes from the misinformation I was given on Thursday by whomever was working at 2:33pm PST when I called and was given totally bogus information. And got worse when I rearranged my schedule, drove the 20+ miles to get to the store — in a hard rain — only to be turned away. I had much better things to do then to waste $7+ in gas, not to mention my time which seemed to have been totally devalued in the situation.

This situation was futher irritated by the unprofessional conduct of Reggie who is Dick Winters secretary. Reggie was about as uncooperative and uncaring about the situation as could be. He wanted to make it very clear that there was nothing CompUSA would do about their mistake and even questioned whether they had even made any kind of mistake.

Yeah, Reggie, call your customers stupid. That’s the ticket.

That’s wrong, IMO, if that’s the position of the company. But I refused to believe that this was the position of the company. So I did the rational thing: took the situation to a higher power.

When I got back to my office, however, I still waited for a little while before contacting the CompUSA corporate office. If Reggie or somebody from the local Tacoma store would have just called me and said: “we are setting aside a copy of Tiger for you, so you don’t have to worry” then I probably would not have even called the corporate office. As for writing the story here? Well, it was too late to stop that train.

Where does this leave things now?

It sounds like the Tacoma News Tribune is going to possibly run this story in an upcoming business section, so those who are local may get to hear their view as reported from both sides. I’m not sure when it will happen and the reporter did say it had to be run past a manager first so that person may decide to kill the story.

I hope if they do print the story that they do clearly represent the key issues correctly and that they put the blame on Apple and their draconian business contracts (which stupidly handcuff the retail outlets and can actually create conflicts like this) and this utterly silly timed launch as well as the CompUSA regional office customer NO service.

And what about that customer NO service?

I still haven’t heard back from the Corporate CompUSA office. Not a word. Here’s my case #1-150-886-707. Maybe some MakeYouGoHmm reader will have better luck at getting somebody up there to contact this customer — me — about this inexcusable treatment by their regional office employee. Maybe the regional office manager, Dick Winters will call me, someday. The reporter indicated to me that even the newspaper had had trouble reaching him in past correspondences. How about that?! Not even the local newspaper can reach this guy? How important is he? Is he some kind of superstar or something? Did I miss this guy on the last American Idol or something?

Bottom line
The store was polite and professional, save for the misinformation given me on Thursday, but I believe they did what they were able to do thanks to an overly-anal Apple contract on Friday. As for the CompUSA corporate office? Dottie was very polite, courteous and professional and promised to “get my issue resolved” but that was Friday and when I called back all I found out was that the corporate office was closed for the weekend. Reggie? He should get a severe write-up for his conduct. I don’t want Reggie to lose his job, but if he ever treats another customer the way he treated me than he should be cut loose — and fast. Somebody please remind Reggie that internet exists and any number he refuses to give customers they can find in about 10 seonds without his help.

Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt for someone to remind Reggie who actually pays his salary. It’s not CompUSA, that’s just the name on the check. It’s people like me driving through the rain for 20+ miles to buy products and services from their stores.

We do business with Best Buy to the tune of about $6,000 a year. My money will spend good elsewhere, so it’s their perogative to blow of this customer — me. Or heck, I can do the business online. The choice is mine and I can vote with my feet.

The corporate office may not care about calling me back over a $129 Tiger purchase, but each day that goes by without that call makes every CompUSA competitor look more appealing.

And again, it’s not the actual store’s fault, even though they are being punished. I don’t blame the store, I blame the corporation because the fish stinks at the head. Stinky fish who are too busy to deal with and/or talk to customers.

Sometimes all the customer needs to know is that somebody cares and hear a meaningful apology. It sure helps if that apology comes from the top and not just the bottom. People like Dick Winters who are too busy to come out and talk to customers should find jobs where they aren’t responsible for customers.

And to end on a positive note: I was excited to hear from the TNT reporter, Kim, tonight. Thank you, Tacoma News Tribune and Kim for following this blog and I look forward to reading the story, if you should, indeed, decide to publish it.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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