Customer Service or Customer No Service?

Recently I had the misfortune to have a run in with a customer service fiasco at Lowes. As anyone who knows me would tell you, I spend a tremendous amount of time, effort and money doing a wide variety of handyman tasks.  Needless to say, this means I spend a fair amount of time and money Lowes, Home Depot and my all time favorite local independent hardware store.  In my case it is named Curry Thomas Hardware of Jacksonville.  Every time I go in there I am taken back to the hardware store of my childhood.  Even then as a boy growing up in the 1960's it was a historical marvel.  Situated on the corner of Farm To Market Road and Hawkins Avenue in Lake Ronkonkoma, NY it occupied the main thoroughfare of our sleepy little edge of suburbia. 

When you went inside even back then, the wood floors creaked, the aisles were crammed with all sorts of stuff a boy could wonder about.  This was the kind of store you could buy five of the very screws you needed not a blister pack of 50 that were somewhere near the correct size.  In addition if you just sat there for a minute, you would hear some old guy tell a customer the best way to solve a particular problem using this or that whatchamacallit. Of course there were the display cases full off cool stuff the best of which were the pocket knives.  Best of all if you didn't have a penny to spend, you could still walk around admiring the place and what I believe was it's number one attraction.  On the north wall, there was a series of framed photographs of the store from the outside dating back to the late 19th century.  You could see what the place looked like with horse and buggy traffic, the you could see old cars and the classic look of stores in the 50's.  It was sort of a local museum.  The store was named Agnew & Taylor.  Here is a link to their website.  

1915 Check out the lack of motor vehicles even by 1915

1927 Notice the "traffic" control - SLOW KEEP RIGHT

1938  At last a real traffic light, that intersection was the only light  in the area for a long time.

1954

Well, all reminiscing aside, this post is about modern big box horrors.  I recently had the misfortune of having a terrible return effort at Lowes.   The really amazing thing is that I actually was sent away from the store with brand new unopened Lowes brand merchandise that I was not even permitted to get a store credit for.  Well I made it clear to the managers that I would not let it end there.  One reason for my level of frustration was the fact that this wasn't the first time this had happened to me. More details will come out below as you read a letter I sent to Lowes corporate offices. At first I thought I was being ignored, then it occurred to me the email addresses I guessed at were not accurate.  You see what I did was went to the corporate page that listed the executive staff.  I then picked anyone who looked like they had either operational or marketing roles.  Then I fabricated email addresses from the first initial and last name of the person to which I added @Lowes.com.  Well after a full 24 hours with no reply, I thought I ought to send a registered letter and try another algorithm for assembling the email addresses.  While I was does this I got an email from Robert J. Gfeller, Jr. the  Customer Experience Executive.  By the way, he was my number one pick.  Well Mr. Gfeller  let me know in his email that he had assigned someone to the problem.  within a short time, I got not one, not two not three but four calls attempting to assure me that the problem would be resolved to my satisfaction.   Oh yeah, I was polite and informative as you will see below but I was also very demanding.  I told them that since I had already spent so much of my time and energy on this process, I expected Lowes to resolve the problem without my needing to return to the store or  do  anything for that matter.  I suggested someone ought to come to me to collect the returned items.  Well it turns out that was exactly what they had in mind and why they were jumping through so many hoops to get a hold of me.  They were determined to show me the understood that the ball had been dropped and they weren't going to let it go.

While I still haven't completed the process, I am confident it will end well. That is why I decided to post this story now.  I will try to come back and update it with the details of the resolution.  In the meantime, here is the letter I send to the Lowes executives:

Before the email begins, let me be clear in stating that I would prefer to maintain a relationship with Lowes I know many of the people at my store and they are generally friendly and helpful.  However, I will not allow a mismanaged corporate policy to either accuse me of dishonesty or refuse to give me any satisfaction when attempting to return goods to them.

As an aside, I have mentioned this to several friends and co-workers.  Not a single one of them could believe I was not even able to receive a credit for use in the store.  Like me they were all amazed that I was expected to just keep the goods even though they are still in the same condition as those found on the shelves.  Neither they nor I could point to another example of a company doing this.  What is worse this is the second time I have had to endure this frustrating corporate behavior from Lowes!

Introduction

As you can tell by the list of emails I have included on this email, I am pretty much trying my best to reach a decision maker who can address some concerns I have before they get to a point where neither of us will truly be satisfied.  As I suppose you can imagine this is a complaint letter.  I decided to contact you folks because I am a businessman as well and I realize how difficult it is to attract customers let alone steady ones. The cost of losing a customer in my field is pretty high, I imagine your industry is similar.  My problem will not only result in your loss of me as a customer, but the additional potential loss of those who are exposed to my story.  I am sure you know many of your stores are located near or adjacent to a Home Depot so choice is not difficult.  I am not doing this as a vendetta or in a sense of revenge or bitterness.  I simply have decided I will not do business with any organization that refuses to accept for return goods I purchased from them.  If you would like to avoid the details I will attempt to summarize first what has occurred, then I will fill in the details that make this a story worth listening to.  Before I get into the story I will admit I am not the writer I ought to be.  I know this because my son happens to be a terrific writer, in fact he is a newspaper reporter at our local newspaper in our city.  Just to be clear he is not in some Podunk little town nor is this all he could get.  He has worked at some very large papers and has had offers from papers like the Boston Globe, New York Newsday, The Dallas Morning News and the Washington Post.  He has been received national level awards for his writing.  I say this both because I am proud of him as well as I am aware that he is capable of using this kind of story to run with as an interest story on a slow news day.

Summary

I have tried to return several items all of which except one are clearly marked with either the Lowes or Blue Hawk labels (Lowes in private label brands).  All the items were clearly new in on opened and unused status.  Not only could I not get a refund, I was refused even a store credit.  What's worse is I escalated the problem through a customer service supervisor, a customer service manager and an associate store manager.  The really astounding part was that the person in charge of the store at that point in time was helpless to override a system that said I could not return these items valued under $60.  I made it clear how absurd it seemed to me that a product that cannot come from any other store was now something I was forced to keep though I had no use for it.  He agreed but said he could do nothing.  The crux of the problem as you will see is: a. I did not have the receipt, b. while I am confident I used My Lowes card I no longer have the card so it was of no use.

Details

I was attempting to return two Kobalt sockets still in the original packaging, a Blue Hawk ladder bracket and a non- Lowes branded piece of latch hardware.  As I said all of the items were in there undisturbed packaging. When I get stuff at Lowes I frequently buy more than I think I need assuming I will be able to return what I don't need when the project is complete. 

A Bit of History and Background

In the past few years we have done two major expansions to our home.  We took it from a 2,300 sq. ft. 4 bed 2 bath home to a nearly 4,000 sq. ft. 8 bed 4 bath home.  As you can imagine those projects significantly increased my spending those years.  In addition such a large home means a large amount of maintenance.  I buy a large amount of stuff as a result I probably have a large number of returns.  Around the time you began the My Lowes card program the ability to return items with only the card used to purchase them was terminated.  At that time, several years ago, I somehow hit a special threshold for returns without receipt or a card that was used for the purchase.  Now I will diverge a moment because a bit of explanation is in order.  Often when I return something it is because it was the wrong item and I need to get the right one.  If I received cash for the return, I would pay for the subsequent purchase in cash.  It was those items that caused what I consider insulting. At that point mentioned above as you were implementing your new system, a cash return I was attempting caused my driver's license to be flagged as not valid for returns.  There is no explanation anyone could offer other than I did too many returns.  That was years ago, yet the license is still flagged!  What does the flag mean?  I can only surmise one meaning: I have been identified as someone Lowes believes steals items to return at a later date.  This could not be more insulting.  At the very same store, I have repeatedly had opportunity to let the checkout clerk miss an item yet I refuse. More than once, I accidentally walked out with something I put in my pocket because I wasn't planning on getting more than one item and didn't get a cart only to find my hands full. When I got out to the truck I realized my mistake and went back into the store to pay for the item.  Sometimes one of my children were with me and I wanted them to see what the honesty I try to teach them looks like.  Other times it was simply a knowledge that I cannot expect them to do right when no one is looking if I am not will to myself.  Often when a clerk they gave me too much change or missed an item or when came back to pay for an item I erroneously walked out with, I would be asked why or at least they would comment with surprise.  Well that saddens me because I would hope most people would recognize stealing even due to the mistake of others or yourself is still stealing.  I teach my children that no one can take their integrity it is theirs alone to protect or ruin.  Just like lying, stealing is a way only you can destroy your integrity.  Well how can I teach that and not live it?  No matter how small, I realize theft costs me my integrity.  I often tell those clerks, that not once but twice in my life I had opportunity to get away with stealing over $100,000,000 dollars (yes that is a number in the hundreds of millions).  While you may find that hard to believe, it is true.  I work in computers and have had access to huge amount of untraceable funds on several occasions.  If I didn't then why now would I steal such and insignificant amount? As you can see, I am passionate about integrity and insulted by a corporation that assumes I have stolen or at least am untrustworthy. 

Enter the Magic of the My Lowes Card

After the problems mentioned above I was told I could solve all this with a very simple My Lowes card.  So I got one.  I stuck the little sticker on the back of my credit card.  I proceeded to use it diligently.  Then about 18 months ago my credit card expired and I got a new one.  I tried peeling off the sticker and applying it to the new card but that failed.  So I got a new My Lowes magic card and proceeded to it.  Well recently we had an identity problem with that card.  Perhaps you have heard about the Target problem with debit cards.  Well I got another new card.  This time however, I snipped the section that had the My Lowes sticker and put it in my wallet.  Unfortunately it must have fallen out because I lost it.  When I went to do my recent return I was once again denied.  I was told the magic in the My Lowes card is only magical if I registered the card.  Of course telling me this when the card is lost is not real helpful.  Again we are talking about a less than $60 return.  No big ticket items here.  What was even more insidious was finding out that after all this time, at least three years, my license is STILL FLAGGED.  I am still a suspected customer!  This tells me that once you flag a person they never have the flag removed.  Now I am curious about something.  Let's say for grins and giggles that I were a thief.  Do you imagine that a person dishonest enough to steal and return items is also either too honest or too ignorant to use a false ID once you flag the ID he tried?  Let's face it if you tell a criminal you cannot use this ID anymore, he will go to another store with a different ID.  Heck my wife who is generally honest, saw this ploy herself.
I told the clerk and variety of managers that they could try to look up My Lowes card by finding a transaction of some sort with one of my cards that was not new.  Then they could look up my account information and see if the purchase shows up.  No joy, they either could not do this or were not willing. So here I sit with a sad tale and merchandise Lowes sold me that I have not use for.

Another Corporate Approach

As a side note, I would like to offer for you another corporate perspective that is completely opposite form yours.  Audible.com the company that offers audio books for purchase is a company I have done business with since their inception. Originally, their return policy was not nearly as easy as it is now.  Currently they give you a long time from the point of purchase until when you decide you want to return the item. Now understand there is a difference, they know you purchased it.  This means they have no doubt whether you walked out of the store without paying.  However, unlike a stolen tool, an audio book is the kind thing you commonly listen and move on from.  It is not common to want to listen again. Yet regardless of whether you listened to it or not, they accept the return.  The realize people could scam them, but are willing to trust their customers as being more likely to be honest than dishonest. Amazingly while my returns have dramatically increased, my purchased have increased at an even higher rate.  Now I am fearless at trying out a book I am unsure about but think I may like.  Also when I return items there is never a hint of suspicion.  Now I will say I have returned many books.  Each time when I explain why and that I feel bad, the customer service rep tells me that Audible wants me to love my purchases. They want me to return what I didn't like even if I listened to the whole book.  Compare that to a policy that devoid of any evidence refuses to even issue a store credit for merchandise that is clearly only available at that store!

Back to the Details

To give you an example of what I spend at your stores, I recently pulled the details from the smaller of my two checking accounts.  In one year I spent over $1,500 in 28 transactions that's an average of $56 per trip.  Most of that money represents merchandise that was not returned. As I said that was my small account it is used for only 8% of my income, I hesitate to compute what my main account shows with regards to this.  I would not be surprised if the number is above $15,000.  It would seem to me that you would not want to send a customer like me away.  Not just for what I spend, but you must understand that someone willing to write this note and spend that kind of money is not shy about sharing his issues with others (read your potential customers).  More significantly, I must tell you being as handy as I am, people frequently look to me for advice and assistance.  Do you imagine if I am left unsatisfied I will not share that dissatisfaction and do so with authority?
In closing, I now have several items that I have no use for and am told I am too dishonest to return them.  My wife suggested she return them since her license is untainted.  I told her, I would offer Lowes corporate a chance to right this wrong.  To not only handle the return, but also to obliterate the flag on my identity.  I also told her if you failed to handle this, the consequences to follow would include the following:

1. My refusal to shop At Lowes any more
2. My commitment to share this story with any friends I have
3. An initiation of a personal campaign to encourage people to boycott Lowes
4. This story would be shared with every consumer advocate group and / or media outlet I and those willing to assist me are able to locate
5. I would seek my son's assistance in polishing the story and maybe even getting it to run as a special feature in the only major newspaper in our area
6. The final thing I would do I nail the items I was stuck with to the door to my workshop to remind me that Lowes  had a chance to right a wrong and refused

I am very confident in the knowledge that Lowes spends much more time and money on their corporate image than the cost of satisfying this problem I wonder if you are able to calmly ask yourselves the question: “Are you willing to let an obvious flaw in your operations create a tempest in a teapot over such an insignificant amount?”  I would be surprised if that were true particularly when I consider that we are talking about items that are clearly both new and still in the original packaging thus resalable?  Is this something Lowes wants to accept as a policy they want to endorse?  Let me recap, in case my muddied writing has caused you to become confused.

• I have brand new items many of which are private label Lowes products
• I have no receipt
• My license is flagged which does not mean anything positive
• I have spent a considerable amount of time and energy on this
• I will not be happy until someone settles this for me
• The store I most frequently use and this incident occurred at is store #0502 but I also use store #1842

In closing, I will tell you this.  Seeing as I spent over an hour at the store (a large amount of that time was waiting for the manager) trying to return the items.  Also I spent 3 hours composing the email and an additional 1.5 hours on this letter.  That means I have expended five and a half hours attempting to point out to Lowes what any reasonable person would agree is a problem. In light of this effort I really do not wish to expend any more energy on this return. As such, I expect as a resolution for you to provide me with a way to return these items without having to return to the store again.  Either send a mailing box or cover the expense of my packaging and shipping costs. Alternately you could have a local Lowes employee swing by my office or home to pick up the items and issue the refund.  I just know I have been fair in spending my time dealing with the infrastructure Lowes corporate set up.  I work for an hourly rate of $150 per hour in 15 minute increments.  If your desire to have me return the items I expect compensation for my time. 

It is February 10, 2014 at 11:00 am EST.  I will give you 72 hours to respond in some format before I take this any further.  If you reply we can discuss what the boundaries are for concluding this.  By the way, I recognize the absurdity of spending this much effort on $60.  However, I man of principles does not compromise those principles nor allow other to do so where he can influence it.  If I would go the extra step to point out errors in my favor I will do no less when they are not.

Hopefully yet not expectantly

Thom Pantazi

Memories of Mom

Recently, I was prompted to tell someone an anecdote about my mother.  This made me think these will at best fade away in my memory and at worst will simply die with me. So I decided to write the story down. As these come up I hope to continue them.

The story begins after the following introductory paragraph.  If you are not interested in the background simply skip it.

Now you may say why after six years is this guy posting personal stories on a blog entitled "The Ex Republican and Never Democrat"?  To answer this, first I must say I have become very disenchanted with any efforts to influence our government.  I committed a lot energy to this effort for many years only to see the two political parties lie and cheat to serve their own ends.  I am convinced that our government is no longer a government of the people or for the people.  On top of this, my passion for influencing change also caused a riff in my family as they were inconceivably hard core liberal Democrats.  Why this so inconceivable to me is that my father made a serious fortune showing wealthy people how to avoid paying taxes yet was a militant proponent of taxing the rich.  This never made sense to me nor does it now.  This dichotomy plus a strong sense of pride in the way my parents rose from poverty to wealth on their own efforts alone is why I am proud to share this story. Especially since my mother knew a level of poverty many people have no idea ever existed in America not would they be able to comprehend the horrors of growing up in them.  She rose from that and taught me I could do whatever I chose.  I miss and thank her for those lessons.  Here now the story:

Choose a real choice not a dictated option

So it has been a while since I posted the first posting. This blogging thing is obviously new to me. Having said that, I resolved to post something on a weekly basis if only to record my current thoughts on the dismal state of our political environment.

When I last posted, the field of candidates was pretty wide for both parties. Mike Huckabee still had a chance at the Republican nomination. I can't tell you how many people told me they would have voted for him but "He doesn't have a chance". If only people would vote their conscience instead of voting for what they see as being the pragmatic view, we might see results that match our views. Instead we get what the handlers want for us. They decide who they think can win and they feed him to us as the only choice worth voting for.

I wonder how many people know that there used to be a real choice in America. During the run up to the civil war in the election Lincoln won, there were four candidates. In fact, the Republican party was so new they had never had a presidential candidate win before. My point is that during a time of difficult tension and strife, Americans voted their conscience and as a result they put on the ballot a bigger variety of choices. Today we are given the choices the party handlers want us to have. The result is rather than seeing a good crop of choices, we see just what the party knows it can control.

Is that how you want America to be governed? By back room deals? By funding from the biggest contributors? The campaign reforms of McCain Fiengold have only limited how much we can contribute directly to a candidate not how much we can contribute to 527 organizations. So while I can only give a small amount to say Obama, I can give millions to Move On.org. We all know where Move On stands. Just like we know where the NRA stands.

So now what has happened is we have restricted how much we can contribute to the politician of our choice. However, corporations even foreign corporations can contribute unlimited amounts to 527s. Why should a corporation be allowed to be involved in the political process at all? Corporations are not citizens. They cannot vote, they cannot serve in the military, they can move jobs and assets across borders freely. So why then should they be permitted to have such a strong level of influence over our political environment? America today is more of a government for the corporation rather then for the people. That is wrong and self destructive. I realize the corporations have a very tempting pool of funds, but since corporations by their very nature are self serving, and since corporations are becoming so multinational, the interest of a corporation are very likely to be at odds with the interests of the American people. If America is a government "of the people, by the people and for the people" shouldn't the people take back their control?

Unfortunately, the only way that will happen is if we elect politicians that are willing to give up all that money. Who am I kidding? No politician will stand up against the vast sums of money the corporations are throwing at them.

So in summary, I think we are suffering from a lack of control due to two factors: First we have given up on voting what we believe in and are voting for practicality. Second we have turned over our government to corporate interests. Sad to say, but I think America has been sold to the highest bidder. The corporations are the owners and they are funneling their control into the hands a a few puppets they know they can control. As long as Americans refuse to vote their mind, they will continue to be controlled by people with hidden agendas.

What do you think? Let me know.


Thom

Welcome

This is a new blog and I have created it to have a place to post some thoughts on the current political culture in America. I am a conservative who firmly believes in the ideal that government should protect the rights of the people. It should not intrude on their privacy or try to impose itself on them. While I am deeply affected by my faith in Jesus, I reject the notion that our government should try to impose a set of laws which produce a moral population. People in their natural state are in opposition to the righteousness God expects. That is why we need Jesus. Therefore creating laws that will make people conform with that righteousness is foolish. It will cause people to reject Jesus rather than embrace Him.

People will choose righteous behavior as a result of their desire to please God only when they have a right relationship with Him. However, while this is not a theological blog, I can hardly talk about politics without establishing a baseline. A large part of my political thinking is based on my faith. However, I did ant to state up front that I do not want to reform the behavior of our culture, I do want to ensure our culture is not hostile to my faith.

So why "The Ex Republican"? Well, Ex republican was taken, :-) I spent many years vigorously supporting the GOP. I have worked on the campaigns of both Bush presidents as well as Ronald Reagan. I have contributed time, talents and hard earned cash. Why? Because I felt the ideals of the Republican party most closely aligned to my views. However, I see by their actions they do not. George W. Bush had no excuse not to take action during his second term before the Congress fell to the Democrats. Why was there no concerted effort to push through an agenda that forces the people to see a real leader? I'll tell you why. While the Republican party claims they are for smaller government, that means smaller only by comparison to the Democrats. It does not mean actually reducing the size of government. They play the same games as the Dems do. They call a reduction in the amount they increase spending as a budget cut. Never mind the fact that more dollars are being spent. Whatever happened to actually cutting programs and spending? I can understand why Bush would have been reluctant to do anything too radical before the 2004 election. The media could easily misrepresent the facts. However, after the election, he had a republican house and senate and all he had to do was say to them, "Since I don't have a line item veto, send me single issue bills. I will sign them into law." With that, he could have easily done what this country needs.

The fact is he and the Republican party don't want to reduce government, they just want to focus the growth on their favorite areas. That is no better than what the Democrats want to do on a fiscal side.

On a morality side, the Republicans are so afraid of the media, they will never actually take a stand for the things that really matter so they will fight for things that are on the periphery. They could fight abortion on demand, but instead they fight homosexual marriage. While I would prefer not to have homosexuals getting married, I do not see it being anywhere near as important as protecting the lives of those who are dying daily.

That concludes my first post. In the future, I will get more in depth. I will take on discussions about the candidates and their statements. I will also recount some anecdotes I've observed over the years.