A warning to those that may be considering purchasing a product made by Atlantic Water Gardens. DON'T do it. I bought a can of their waterfalls foam for $16.00 dollars. Not a huge sum but not cheap either. The can was defective so I went on line to find a number to call. I made two calls the first I left a voice mail but never received an answer. The second was to a customer service manager. After explaining the problem his solution was to take it back to the store. Now why didn't I think of that! Because to take it back, would have involved over 40 miles of driving. I told him that and his reply was simply silence. I'm glad I learned my lesson on something small and not a skimmer. I can imagine them telling me to dig a skimmer out and take it back because a minor problem that could be solved if they simply mailed out a part.
Atlantic Water Gardens has terrible customer service
- Thread starter mgmine
- Start date
I have worked in retail for quite a long time and it is pretty par for the course that if you want a refund for something that is defective, you need to return it... Believe me when I tell you, there are thousands+ people out there who make their living by scamming retailers out of money. Out of curiosity, what did you expect them to do for you?
I'm a little curios as well.dieselplower said:
If they weren't willing to exchange the item I could see the you getting upset, but it sounds like they are perfectly willing to replace the "defective" item if you return it, you might even get an apology, not that it's really their fault. I don't know too many retailers that are willing to do much more than that. Even if you order something online and receive a defective item, the retailer usually expect you to return the item at your expense, after which they will reship a new item at their expense. In your case it sounds like you bought the item directly at the store, in which case they are willing to return it at the store.
I live about 30 miles out of the nearest large city with shopping centers, I can't tell you how many times I've had to return item to stores in that city, I never once assumed that maybe I could just phone them and tell them about the problem and expect them to bring me the exchange item. It would be nice, but the world doesn't seem to be geared that way. Reality kind of sucks, eh?
I would have expected them to send a can in the mail. They may have been willing to accept a return but that doesn't mean that the store would. It wasn't the stores fault it was the companies product. Over the years I have had problems with products and typically a simple phone call solves it. What a company does to resolve a problem says a lot about them. What I find helpful when considering several different brands is to call the company or store depending on the situation. I ask them a question about the product that requires a research. If I don't hear back from them then I won't deal with them. If they ignore you before the purchase what would you expect after the purchase?
slakker
AKA Mike
I think that it's true that 1000+ people try to scam, and that may be a small percentage of all the customers a business will have. So a company can either bury the cost of the "bad debt/goodwill" into its cost and provide better service for the majority, or they can optimize the cost and guard against all customers, as if everyone is trying to scam them.
For our hobby, I would think we're mostly spending out of "disposable" income and a marginal increase in costs but overall improved customer service would do a company well... at least that's the strategy I would take if I had a company servicing this hobby.
For our hobby, I would think we're mostly spending out of "disposable" income and a marginal increase in costs but overall improved customer service would do a company well... at least that's the strategy I would take if I had a company servicing this hobby.