Way to go, squeaky!

After a frustrating customer service experience, I wrote the following letter on Saturday:

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To: (Joe's Sporting Good's Customer Service Automated Email Portal)

I had a rather frustrating experience with one of your stores this morning and wanted to relay it with you in hopes that some improvements could be made.

I own an Instep jogging stroller and am trying to purchase a rain cover for it. I went to the Instep website to determine where I could find the rain cover for my stroller and Instep pointed me to Joe’s Sporting Goods as a retailer of their jogging strollers. As I live 45 minutes away from the store, I looked online to confirm this fact, and sure enough, Joe’s does carry InStep strollers. I then called the Lakewood, Washington Store (#17) to see if they carried the cover in stock before I made the drive.

The first time I called I was placed on hold indefinitely. After 5 minutes of silence with no feedback and no pickup, I hung up and called back.

The second time I called, I was told by a young-sounding female that Joe’s “doesn’t sell jogging strollers.” I informed her that I was currently online while we were talking, and looking at the Joe’s website at Jogging strollers. She then told me that "the stores don’t carry what is online." I asked if she could confirm this fact with someone else before disconnecting me. She sighed heavily, and then transferred me to sporting goods.

The third person picked up the phone and said “ummmm, I don’t think we sell strollers,” but was cut off by another associate in the background who corrected him and said “yes we do, they are right there in front of you.” The associate on the phone then said “oh…uhhh, I guess we do sell strollers.”

I then told him I was looking for the rain cover, and told him I had the brand and model number, and asked if he or someone else could please look it up and see if they carried it, and if they had one in stock. He told me “he’d have to go find a pen.”

A minute or two passed before he returned to the phone and I was able to relay the model number to him. I then sat on hold another five or six minutes. He returned to tell me that Joe’s doesn’t sell rain covers for jogging strollers and hung up on me. He didn't offer to special order it, he didn't apologize. He said "we don't sell them" and hung up.

While it is frustrating that I couldn’t find what I was looking for, it is all the more frustrating that the associates didn’t seem to really know what the store sells, and I’m not really sure whether the information I was given is even correct or not.

Please provide more consistent training in customer service as well as in product knowledge for your sales associates.

Thank you,
Stephanie Scott
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I didn't think anything would come of this letter, but rather that I was just informing them of their crappy service.

Bryan and I actually drove all over kingdom come Saturday afternoon looking for another place that might sell rain covers for the stroller, but nobody carries them (remember, my stroller is old, but some new ones can fit on the old models.)

So I was very happily surprised to receive a call Monday morning at 9:00am, from the head of inventory management. She informed me that the store has been having some "issues," and that they have just recently been given a new manager.
She also told me that there were several places where the sales associates failed to provide me with basic customer service, and as such, she was going to make it up to me, if I could give her 24 hours to do some digging. She asked for the model number of both my stroller and the rain cover and told me she would get back to me by the end of the day.

A few hours later she called and told me that she was having trouble getting a hold of someone at InStep, but that she was on top of it and would call me again Tuesday. I said, "no problem." I told her I already had learned that I could order it directly from InStep myself, and I was happy to do that, but she interrupted me and asked if I could give her 24 hours first before I did that. I agreed, not really sure why she was so gung-ho about wanting to order the thing for me, but since I had complained and she was following through, I felt the need to let her do her job.

She called back Tuesday and told me she had found the product, they did carry it, and she had just wanted to make sure it was in stock, (which was why she was wanting to talk to the InStep people first) because she was sending me one free of charge for all my trouble.
WOW! Not only did I get a prompt follow-up, but I was now getting the product for free! That just saved me $25, plus shipping; sometimes the squeaky wheel does get the grease.

Rest-assured, when the rain cover gets here, I'll be sending a very nice letter to Joe's Sporting goods, thanking them for fixing the problem and for the free rain cover, because that is above and beyond.