Office Dorko

I want a larger chair mat for my work area, as I move between three machines and the one i got at office depot, while nice, is too small.

Nobody carries larger mats that I can find, so I ordered one from Office Depot online. It ships and the site says it will be delivered by 5. By 6 I check the site and now it is scheduled for redelivery on Wed. What?

So I call Office Depot:

me: “I was home all day waiting for this and I won’t be here tomorrow, what happened?” (forget that I work at home, I did stay in and have Elizabeth get lunch for us so I would not miss it) OD: “they ran out of time, so will deliver tomorrow. I am very, very sorry for this.” me:”I wont’ be here tomorrow. Can I pick it up now?” OD: “No. We deliver from the warehouse directly” me: “Where is the warehouse?” OD: “In seattle.” (I live in Portland, OR 3 hours away on a good day) me: “So where is it now?” OD:”At the warehouse” me: “But it is 6pm are you saying they gave up at 2?” OD: “We’re very sorry, would you like to reschedule for a later date?” me:”No, this is a principles thing now. If you tell me today by a certain date and time you better mean it. And if not, give me a chance to go get it, just like UPS and Fed Ex. I really need it, but I am going to cancel this order based on your poor customer service and not order from OD online again.” OD:”We’re very sorry. If the chair mat comes tomorrow just refuse it” me:”What part about me not being here tomorrow don’t you understand?”

Sigh.

As it turns out, I WILL be here in and out tomorrow, but the principle still stands. I won’t order from a place that ships form 3 hours away and expects to be anywhere near their delivery promises.

Update: 11:32am

So i end up waking up late. On a lark I check the Office Depot site for my order. It is out for delivery still. Well ok, maybe I’ll take it. So I call their number, speak my order number twice and it tells me the guy is on stop 1 of 60 (it is 11:30am) and that I am stop 3. Then I ask to speak to a customer representative, and after 2 minutes of music and beeps, the computer tells me it cannot complete the call at this time. Rofl. Nice service.

Update: 1:10pm

I called the automated system again since the woman who said she would call me back 90 minutes ago has not done so yet. The computer still says the delivery guy is on order #1. ROFL. These guys just don’t have a clue.

Update: 1:20pm

Spoke with a different customer representative. She confirmed they have no pick up system but that there is probably a warehouse in my area. She said that though the order is marked cancelled, there was no refund given, so she is having customer service level 2 call me back within 3 hours. She showed the same information, on delivery 1 of 60, and said they had no way to communicate with the driver directly other than via ‘notes’. Also, she said she didn’t know how the previous representative (11:30am) could contact shipping because they have no way to do that. Nice, eh?

Update: 4:30pm

Chair mat arrived. No call from customer service yet. Mat is too thin it seems. sigh. More to deal with 🙂

Update: 4:40pm

I called customer support and told them it was too thin and asked what to do. After several minutes we decided to just return it. She said they could pick it up or I could return it to my store. I chose the latter. Bundled the huge thing up and hauled it to the store.

So the guy, Scott, tells me he can’t take it back because I ordered it online. I told him that under no uncertain terms was I walking out of the store with this mat that I hauled down on the advice of the person on the phone. He said he was not sure why she told me that, but because I ordered it online it had to go back via delivery. Only had I ordered it from the store could it go back to the store.

He went on to inform me that the people in Fl didn’t have a clue what happened on the west coast and that doing business online was risky. I said “What? Doing business with your company is a risk?” which got the looks of many customers around heh, and he said any online order is a risk. lol.

So after a pretty good exchange, which is not usual for me, I got him to write me a note that I had left it there with all of the info on the note. He was cool enough to do that, and while I like the store, I’ll never deal with Office Depot online again other than to see what the store offers.

I got home and called the online dept, told them the horror story and they have arranged for a credit and to pick up the mat at the store.

Amazing what you have to go through to roll a chair around isn’t it?

Update: 7/30/2004

Office Depot Florida called to apologize. The guy said he got an email this morning to call me and see if my mat had come and that he had gotten my horror story. I guess he didn’t read the part about me returning it. Seriously, what is up with this company? Anyway, he offered to make sure I got my refund, so that was nice.

Then 1 hour later, Office Depot called. Was on the caller ID. The guy asked “Is this Office Depot dispatch?” I answered “No” He hung up. LOL. I should almost pay them for the entertainment and lesson on how not to run a company.

Update: 8/17/2004

It has been a few weeks. My refund showed up last week on my credit card. I also got a nice apologetic letter from Office Depot and they sent me a $50 gift card for the store. That was nice of them!