Customer service seems to be lacking these days...

Now I'm not typically a complainer, but I feel very strongly that if I use my blog to recommend places to shop, do, eat at or things to purchase that on occasion I should also use my blog to share some of my less then good purchases and/or services. But I typically don't jump to this at first. I always try to reach the company that I have issues with in hopes to make them aware of their problems and hopefully end with a good customer service experience. However the following two landed no where near "good customer" service for me and I felt the need to vent and/or warn you all about them.

My recent Best Buy experiences have led me to believe that although the store is called "Best Buy" that does not translate to "best" service, "best" selection, "best" website or "best" employees. Last weekend I was on the hunt for my new Bamboo touch tablet and it seemed with my travels taking me to Utah County that I would have plenty of chances to hit one of these stores to make my much anticipated purchase. The first store in Orem/Provo was disappointing to say the least.  Aside from the fact the store smelled of BO (weird I know...probably because it's filled with men and boys), we continued our search for our item or some help.  At first, we couldn't find the item and when we asked an associate of the store we were waved over to the end of the isle and told "it's down there, but we're probably out of them" and he walked off. Now how hard would it have been for him to walk us 10 feet that direction and then offer to locate the item at another store (I have to pass three going home). But he disappeared and no other employees asked if we needed help. We left the store a little annoyed.

We returned to my friends house to search the Best Buy website to before hitting another Best Buy to make our purchase. Their site showed that the store in Sandy had what we needed and we headed that way on our return home. We made it to the store with only 15 minutes to spare and after following a very confused associate around for 10 minutes. He was eventually able to find where the item should be located, but that they did not have it. He informed me that their website was not always accurate but that he would look at the other stores inventory in "their" computer system. He assured me that another store on our way home carried many of the item, however, they would be closed before we could reach them. So we continued home very frustrated and unsatisfied. Sure I could have returned to my search after the weekend, but with AMAZON, why bother? We made our purchase online, free of sales tax and shipping charges and it was delivered to us by the end of the week without fail. So the moral of this story...skip running around town and just buy from Amazon, because they're the "best buy" around!! 

INK CARTRIDGES
My next misforturnate experience with bad product and/or customer service was with Clickinks.com. I purchased a set of 2 black and 1 color refurbished ink cartridges from them at the recommendation of a friend. I hate spending so much on ink, but I so desperately need it. Although I liked the price of my order and fast delivery of the item I have to say I was not very impressed with the quality. My first black cartridge maybe printed 20 black and white copies before drying up, so I opened up my next to complete some printouts before church and was met with a package filled with ink, which got ALL OVER and a cartridge that couldn't print. I tried contacting clickinks.com to tell them of my defective product, but that was a week ago and I have yet to receive a reply. So my recommendation to all, don't buy from clickinks.com or buy refurbished or refill your carts at the office supply stores...nothing good ever comes from these purchases (at least not for me). 

Hopefully you'll have better luck with your customer service experiences this weekend!!