Coming from a relatively small town/city, I used to LOVE Circuit City as it was pretty much THE only outlet in which I could go to check out the latest electronics. However, in the past year (or maybe longer), I have had the absolute WORST customer experiences in dealing with this store. About a year ago, I was looking to upgrade my living room television with a new Samsung Series 6 HDTV. So there I am, standing in a desolate Circuit City store on a Friday evening around 7:00 after receiving my tax refund and I'm ready to drop over two grand in an instant. HELLO!?!?.. (echo.. echo..) I stood there in the TV section of the store for about 20 minutes and even went looking for someone to come assist me. NOTHING. All I could find were two kids (employees) in their early twenties, who both looked like they could give a flying fuck about making a commission, just standing around bullshitting. I go over to them and it was like I didn't exist, they just kept on talking. Finally, the one kid looks up and says, "Can I help you?" And I said, "Yes, I would like to buy a Samsung Series 6." So we walk over to his station and he finds that they do in fact have one in stock and I ask if they accept checks (even though I didn't think they would) and he said that they didn't and it had to be purchased on a card. So I said, "OK, fine. I have my bank card and there is more than enough money in the account to purchase the TV in full." He runs my card through and receives an error stating that he could not run a sum of money that large on a bank card. The banks were closed at this point so I could not withdraw cash. Instead of speaking with a manager he simply directed me over to the customer service desk where he told me that I could apply for a Circuit City credit card. I go over to customer service, explain what just happened to the woman there and showed her the television that I wanted to purchase. She makes me fill out all of these forms and then after another half-hour of waiting she says to me, "Great news! You have been approved for a $1,500 credit limit!" I said to her, "OK, but that is only about HALF of the cost of the television." She proceeds to tell me that there's nothing more that she can do for me. I go back over to the kid who I spoke to earlier, who looked like he couldn't wait to get out of there and hit the clubs, and he tells me that he can't do anything more to help me either and that I should wait until the bank opens tomorrow to get cash to pay for it. At this point, I'm furious. Here I am, ready to drop a large sum of money and I can't get help from anyone in the entire store to help me spend it. I ended up going to Sears the following day where the gentleman there was more than helpful in assisting me with my purchase and even looked up competitors' prices on the Internet for me to get an even better deal.
Actually, in general, all of my retail experiences as of late have been absolutely terrible. A few weeks ago I went in to my local Radio Shack to purchase a serial port connector for a project I was working on and when I asked the kid working there if they had them he said to me in these exact words, "Dude, you're like speaking German to me or something. I don't know anything about computers. Let me ask if someone else can help you." Then he walked in to the back and never came back to tell me if he found anyone that could help me.
Is it me, or has customer service reached an all-time low here in America??
