Ok, so I am not usually the one posting rants or real life incidents, but what happened today has forced me to speak up. This is going to be a long post, and I am not going to censor any names. So here goes -
I was planning to buy a new computer for my work and had fixed the new Macbook Pro as a worthy candidate. We decided to go today and make the awesome purchase only to get the most horrid customer experience we have ever experienced. The store in question is Reliance Digital HSR Layout, Bengaluru. The sales person Madhu, who works in the "Apple department" of said store, pursued us with such determination, and by the way he spoke over the phone, he sounded like he knew what he was doing. Since we are not editing anything out I’ll even let you in on the specifics. The Laptop, just like any other apple product costs a bomb, and a good finance scheme really helps. The sales person told us over the phone that we just have to pay 1k as a locking amount for the sale, and the rest of the amount, and I mean the ENTIRE amount, would be eligible for financing. Keeping this in mind, we went into the store. Thats when the horror began.
The store Reliance Digital HSR Layout, did not have the demo piece of the laptop in question. Yes, I did have a hands on of the device in the past, but before locking in the purchase, we all want to handle it one last time, maybe just for reassurance.
The sales person Madhu did not even offer to give us a demo on the smaller variant. "This is 13 inch model. 15 inch model will be same build, same features, just bigger" just doesn’t cut it!
The way he strong armed us into talking directly about finance first is by no means a sign of a good salesman. There is something called customer relations, that this store, and specially Madhu severely lacks.
He shocked us by telling us to pay 35k down payment. Fine, that too is acceptable, but was he tongue tied, when we asked him about the specifics over the phone?
Fine, lets give him the benefit of doubt, but once you tell us about the down payment, at least give the customer some time to process the whole transaction.
Generally, when we are considering a purchase of this magnitude, we tend to look for some sort of a discount or an offer. Usually, the e-retail sites or even other resellers give us a better price and there is no ban on mentioning these points to the sales people here. We are just evaluating our options. You don’t have to say crap like " If you want to buy you buy, or just go ". We are prospective customers, not beggars.
What do you mean " Why are you asking so may questions? " We are making a large investment, and we are ready to make it too. Don’t we have the right to check all points that we have in our mind?
When we asked him to call his manager, the "Really Polite"( sarcasm heavily intended) Madhu told us to, and I quote " Go call him yourself ". Is this the way you treat your customers?
The manager did try to calm the situation, but the damage was already done. The sales person has said things like "You are asking the item for free", "Go on Amazon or imagine store and buy", "Amazon sells refurbished laptops and calls them original". These are the things you teach your sales force Reliance Digital?
This person, who proudly wears the Apple representative t shirt, is dealing bad press at a wholesale.
It was a mistake we didn’t record the whole conversation, because we have had a god experience with Reliance Digital in the past.
For some of you this might sound trivial, and unfortunately, we didn’t record the conversation so, its my word against his.
Also, I am not looking for any sort of sympathy. I felt I should speak up and strongly recommend you to SKIP this store because I don’t think anyone wants to do business with an outlet that treats its customers like beggars.