Another Wallyworld Fail . . .

[Truett Collins]

It is not a business problem....it is a problem of a society which had turned everything upside down.

 

[Lil4X]

^^ And that's the reason I'll never buy another HP computer product. I purchased a nice new HP laptop some years back - in advance of a big boardroom presentation. Battery wouldn't charge, so I called tech support (Bombay?) Argued with tech about the battery failure and he kept telling me to plug it in for two hours. I'd tell him it HAD been plugged in for 8 hours, still won't even boot up while plugged in . . . the battery is internally shorted. Then he tells me for about the fourth time to plug it in for two hours . . . I ask for a supervisor . . . same story, berating me in broken Hinglish about not plugging it in before use. o_O

I ask for an exchange battery - but they want mine before they'll ship one - two weeks, my presentation is in one by this time. Asked for RFC and they won't issue one without me sending them the whole computer first. Finally called local zone office and got my money back that day. Bought a no-name Chinese laptop for about 1/3 the price just to get me through the presentation. Worked fine, so I kept it for a couple of years before it finally fell apart. No, I won't be buying ANYTHING from HP again. I don't need the grief from some barely-literate CSR halfway around the world.

 

[Dusty921]

I have gotten to the point where I ask to speak to someone capable of making decisions within the borders of the United States.

 

[BilgeRat]

Your battery issue sounds like an oil change issue I had at wallyworld some years back. The whole thing is too long to type into my phone, but long story short, aftet two hours of waiting, they said they couldn't change the oil in my car. I tore up the department manager and the store manager infront of a crowd, and made them remove our cars fron their database while I watched. We haven't been back since.

 

[BigWarpGuy]

I had bought a flat screen television at Walmart. I plugged it in but it would not turn on. I put it all in the box and took it back. The clerk looked it over, saw that it was in the box, told me to get another one. I chose the same make and model and it showed it to the cashier. He did some stuff and I got another flat screen television without having to pay anything. I had called the maker of the television and they said I would have to pay to have it serviced. It was brand new, why would I pay to have it serviced? I am glad Walmart let replace it without any additional cost. I guess Walmart does get it right sometimes. The replacement worked without a problem.

 

[goofyone]

People have a tendency to ignore the 50 times they shopped at Walmart without issue when they complain about the two times something went wrong with their Walmart experience. This natural bias towards negative experiences makes it hard to accurately judge the Walmart customers service experience as a whole. Personally I am actually surprised that Walmart does as well as they do considering the size of the work force they have, the amount of shoppers they have, and the fact that problems are guaranteed to occur as nothing works perfectly all the time and humans make mistakes.

Just as an interesting FYI the scale of the company in this country is quite amazing: Walmart is the largest private employer in the USA with about 1.5 million employees in this country. This means that about 1% of the entire active workforce for the country is working for a single private employer. Walmart is the largest employer in 25 states which of course is half the states in the union. Each week nearly one-third of the U.S. population shops at Walmart.

 

[RUCRAYZE]

Also, consider Walmart, pays very poorly, compared to the other big box Costco, it easily pulls away- Costco has saved millions in training and retention in paying a fair wage with consistent schedules,they are usually open for one shift and other perks, and remains very competitive. Walmart employees, as well as Starbucks, has a policy to split the day (on 8-12, off until 2-) and switching weekly schedules which makes it extremely difficult to plan family schedules.
That being said, I agree w g1 that they indeed do a good job considering. (their on-line shopping is sometimes cheaper, free pick-up and decent turn-around time)

 

[CheeseheadEarl]

Wal Mart batteries are built to a lower standard. I tried em for a while, never could get one to last a whole year. The warranty would replace em, sure, but the inconvenience, or even danger, if the weather was bad enough, of having a car strand me due to a couple bucks saved on a battery wasn't worth it in the long run.

I'm a big fan of AGM batteries. I have an 8 year old Optima in my plow truck, and 2 of em in my tractors. Still going strong. Optima has gone the build outside the borders route now, and comments on the newer ones are not so good. I just put a Super Start AGM in the yuppie truck, good reviews and expect it to last many years.

 

[BilgeRat]

Wal Mart beats up it's suppliers badly. I forget which lawn mower manufacturer it was that I read about, but they turned down a deal with wallyworld because they didn't want to lower their quality standards to what Wal Mart wanted from them.

 

[NSTG8R]

Wal Mart beats up it's suppliers badly. I forget which lawn mower manufacturer it was that I read about, but they turned down a deal with wallyworld because they didn't want to lower their quality standards to what Wal Mart wanted from them.

True. Walmart is turning into the Harbor Freight of general merchandise.