Customer Service...big or small

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The Squirrel - Guest Blog

The customer is always…..dispensable.

The customer is always right. That’s the message I grew up with, coming from a retail family. It’s one I thought, in these straitened times, companies would be embracing with a new-found vigour, all competing for a share of a significantly smaller cake.

Well, it doesn’t seem to be happening. Not if my experience this week is anything to go by, anyway.

Having decided to treat myself to a (very self-indulgent) holiday learning to dance, I thought maybe my trainers weren’t really going to cut it in the clubs of Havana and set out to buy some proper, glamorous Latin ballroom shoes.

First stop was the internet, just to gauge the range available and the prices. Then I headed to my local dance shop, where they didn’t have my size in stock but were very helpful and said they’d order them. I wanted to support this local, independent store, so I duly placed my order, about six weeks ago or so. They promised to call me when they arrived.

After a month I thought I’d better check on the progress. No, they weren’t in yet, but maybe in a few days, I was told. A week later and still no call. I rang back. No, still out of stock with the supplier – we’ll call you next week. Still no call.

Last week I was starting to lose patience and went online and found another small, independent shop which sold online. I emailed them to check availability, telling them exactly which shoes I wanted, and that I needed them urgently. A week later, I’m still waiting for a response.

So on Tuesday, having again not received the promised call from shop number one, I called again. They might be able to get them next week, if they were in stock with the supplier, I was told. But the good news was they could get tap shoes from another supplier. Great! – except I don’t want tap shoes. Fat lot of good they’d be for salsa.

I cancelled my order and headed to Amazon. I placed my order at 5.30pm on Tuesday. My shoes arrived this morning – 36 hours later.

So, is the customer always right? And should we always assume that small – and local – is good, and big, corporate and global is bad? Whose business model is the most sustainable?