Kim took her laptop in to be serviced at Staples at the start of December; something in the power chain had been wonky for several weeks, with the laptop sometimes refusing to switch to AC power and charge the battery when plugged into a wall outlet via the AC adapter.  She lived with the problem for some time before taking it in for warranty repair, simply because she had a lot of work to do and couldn’t be without it for any length of time.  She finally did bring it in around December 1st, and quickly encountered the first of several glaring service issues.

She gave the technicians there all the information they needed (her name and contact info, the receipt from the purchase with warranty information, etc.) but before they could even look at the laptop they had to get a case number for it.  For some reason it was up to Kim to get this case number; she had to call a 1-800 number to do so.  And because that number was based on Ontario, she couldn’t call it while she was still at the store, because they weren’t open yet.  She had to go back to the lab, call Ontario a hour later, and call back the local Staples store to give them the case number.

Now, I understand the need to have a centralized database for keeping track of these things.  Normally I would even applaud Staples for having a nationally organized support system, since it probably means better service than having every store do its own thing.  But why should the customer have to get the case number themselves?  Kim provided to the techs all the information that was needed to generate this number; they could just as easily have called the 1-800 number themselves and gotten the case number without needing to involve her any further.  And apparently, other Staples locations like the one up in Fredericton don’t get customers to get their own case numbers; Kim’s mom has never had to jump through these hoops.

Anyway, the case number was filed and Kim was told she’d be contacted within a week with an update.  A week later, no update.  This is about the time where I became involved in this matter, since Kim was preparing to leave for the holidays and had a lot on her plate.  She also sometimes gets shy dealing with people like this, whereas I speak the language a little more fluently, and have fewer inhibitions about ripping some shoddy technician a new one when they deserve it.

We initially tried to call Staples on Sunday the 10th, but we forgot to do so until about 4:45, and we got an “after hours” type message with their store location and hours of operation.  No option to talk to a technician or anyone else with a pulse.  They were supposed to be open from 12 to 5, so I supposed they had just turned their proverbial answering machine on a few minutes early as they were closing up for the day.  A tad lazy, but whatever.  So I called them again the next day.

This time I at least got a button-menu which eventually gave me the option to speak to an associate, so that seemed like progress.  But when I asked for a technology associate, and they couldn’t immediately page one because they were “serving customers in our store”, the automated menu basically told me to try again later and hung up on me.  Now, I’ve never worked in the retail business but I was under the impression that you never hung up on a potential customer unless they were being abusive or rude in some way.  I realize some people don’t like waiting on hold, but I could always put the phone on speaker mode and do something else until they got to me.  I never got the option.

On the second attempt, though, I did get through to a real technician, who quickly told me that they were waiting on “the adapter” for the laptop to get there.  Presumably they were ordering a new AC adapter for it, even though she had previously tried another one (belonging to Kim’s grandmother, who has the same model of laptop) and the problem persisted.  But in any case, it was good to know they were working on it.  The guy promised to let me know as soon as the adapter arrived.

Well, almost another week has gone by and still no word.  Kim went home to Fredericton this morning and asked me to bring the laptop home with me when I come back later in the week - whether it’s fixed or not.  After all, if it is just the AC adapter that’s the problem, we can still limp it along for a week or two and then pick up the new one from Staples when it arrives.  So I tried calling them today, Sunday the 17th, 16 days after the laptop was first dropped off, to see what progress they had made.

And I got their answering machine, with store hours and location, and no way to talk to a human being.  At 2:30 on a Sunday, right in the middle of their business day.

I personally found this inexcusable; it’s one thing to hang up on customers and ask them to call back later, rather than make them wait for a long time on hold, but to not even give them the option to try speaking to anyone unless they physically come in to the store?  I set aside what I had been planning to do this afternoon (nothing of consequence anyway) and hopped on the next bus downtown to try and set things right.

About an hour later I was standing in the store listening to a man I assume was a manager, explaining to me that he can’t seem to get into the system to figure out exactly what the status of the laptop is, but that it’s probably sitting out in their depot in lower Sackville, which is not open today, but can he call me back tomorrow?  A few deep breaths later, I left my name and contact info with him.  He also said he wasn’t sure why I couldn’t get a hold of a real person since he had been taking calls all afternoon.

Well, he’d better hope the system is working tomorrow, because he assuredly will be hearing from me by this time on Monday, one way or another.  And I’d better not have to go all the way to Sackville to get this straightened out.

Staples: You are on notice.  Better start whacking that Easy button.