Currys And Why The High Street Should Die
I recently bought a new camera to play with (Fuji X-E1) from the long standing high street retailer in the UK, Currys. I bought the accessories (a camera bag, a lens, memory cards, and a spare battery) from the online retailer Amazon. I vowed never to use one of them again. Ever.
Perhaps I had very specific requirements that complicated things: ordered it three weeks before an important holiday, a very niche camera, very strict price point, and the fact that I worked away from home a lot so couldn’t easily have it delivered. I ended up choosing Currys because their website was selling the camera that I wanted for one of the cheapest prices in the UK and it was available immediately. Bingo.
Not so. I confess what sweetened the deal was an eight percent discount that I was eligible for through my place of work. The only catch was that I would have to purchase a Currys gift card. And here is where it all went down hill. Gift cards are not an accepted form of payment on the Currys website. You can include vouchers for small amounts off by promotions but not £900 worth of camera gear. So I was stuck having to visit my local high street Currys. I thought this would be a win win situation. Currys would get my money and I would get a camera I’ve been after for a very long time. If they had it in stock then I would have it straight away and worst case scenario is that I would order it into the store and collect it at my convenience. It didn’t quite happen as planned however.
I had to order the camera into the store but was given a date of Tuesday (ordered on Saturday) which seemed reasonable. Tuesday, when I ordered on the weekend, was pretty good. I left the store looking forward to getting hold of my new camera and begin playing with it and practising with it. I took a day off work and waited for a call from the store.
In the morning the call didn’t come. I waited some more. Still nothing. So after lunch I wandered down to the store and asked if the deliveries had arrived since I had a camera waiting. “Oops sorry we didn’t order it for you. We’ll do that right away. Come back Saturday.” I protested that I was told, and had a pick up date, of Tuesday and that I had to take a day off work for this. I left the store thinking that I had been messed around but that I didn’t mind because I was still excited about having the camera over the weekend to practice. Looking back I should have been more pissed off at the time.
Saturday came and I woke up early to get down to the store and asked about deliveries. They went into the store room and searched around for a while but came back empty handed. I knew the moment I walked in that this didn’t feel right and that I was going to get messed around again. Sure enough they didn’t have it. This is now a week after I had ordered the camera in the first place. I know that doesn’t sound a lot but if we should make a case for keeping the high street alive then the high street should make a case for better service to their customers.
They told me their deliveries only came once a week on Tuesdays from the warehouse. Not sure why they couldn’t ship it straight from the warehouse since had I ordered online they would have offered next day shipping from what I assume is the same warehouse. I even suggested that to make this right with the customer (me) they should courier the item from the warehouse straight to me. Given the size and clout of the Currys group (including Dixons and PC World) I didn’t see this as unreasonable given the mistake was theirs. “No sir we can’t do this”. No reason just, No.
Worse still I had used a gift card which is the worst form of payment invented. I couldn’t get my money back. I couldn’t use of card online and select a speedy delivery. I had basically handed over a large sum of money for no benefit. I tried to suggest the store manager cancel my order and place a new order from the website and discount the next day delivery. Because I ordered with a gift card this wasn’t possible. I would have to pay another £900 and get £900 worth of store credit if we went down that route. This was crazy to me. The store manager offered no options to make a customer satisfied. He wasn’t rude. Very pleasant actually. Just completely not interested in getting me my camera. Not willing to stick his neck out for a customer.
This wasn’t just the store manager’s attitude. The helpline for Currys that I called was the same. “Sorry we can’t do that”. It was as if everyone working for the store knew that nothing could be done on pain of death so they just wouldn’t try. I had to suggest that they courier the item from the warehouse. I had to suggest that they refund the value of the gift card and purchase the item through the website. Both of which were fruitless because some invisible process meant that it just wouldn’t work. I even ended up tweeting the CEO of the Dixons group. I received a PR response to call the helpline to get this sorted out. I didn’t bother because the helpline already refused to help.
I eventually got my camera but only after having to call up again on Monday to check that they had ordered the camera from the warehouse. Called up again on Tuesday to double check that the delivery had arrived. I shouldn’t have to do this. I had to take another day off work too.
Compare this with the experience of ordering from Amazon. I ordered everything else to do with the camera through them and had each item delivered promptly on time. I even had one their delivery partners (DPD) text updates of the exact hour and name of the delivery driver with options to reschedule or leave with a neighbour. This is the service that I wanted. I don’t especially mind if the high street is fading away. I want to have items that I have paid for when I was promised them. If that doesn’t happen (everyone makes mistakes, I’m not annoyed about that) I want the store to go out of its way to correct this. I felt like Currys had my money so now I was a second rate customer. No. I want to feel like a first class customer all the way through. This isn’t difficult.
I want to be able to use gift cards at the store that I purchased them from. Whether that is the a high street outlet or an online outlet. I’ve given you money, let me decide how I use it.
I want to be kept up to date with the status of an order. It cannot be difficult to update a customer after you’ve taken their phone number. No doubt this is only for marketing proposes. But I want you to update me especially if there is a problem with the order. I don’t expect to show up at the store and be told that there is now a problem.
Having your online and high street stores so disconnected and having your store manager so powerless to call the delivery warehouse makes me feel that I am dealing with a huge chain of middlemen who have done their particular bit so didn’t have any responsibility to help after the fact.
Anyway rant over. I do not recommend that anyone shop at Currys or their sister companies unless the item is in store and you really want it. Otherwise you will have to wish and hope that nothing goes wrong.