Yesterday, after dinner at the Festival Walk and shopping for some Parma ham at the Great, I saw my favorite Rose on sale for HKD$128/bottle from $158 at the Watson’s Wine Cellar. There is another 10% off discount for paying with the Dao Hang Bank credit card. When I asked the salesman how long the sale last, he said it would be until the end of August.
Since they only had 2 bottles left on the shelf, and I left my Dao Hang card at home, I placed an order for 6 bottles which the salesman said they would be ready for pickup this Wednesday at the earliest. Fair enough, I then left him with my name and number.
I just received a call from the same salesman telling me that the wine I chose has just been put back on the regular price of $158/bottle, and that they would not be able to fulfill my order at the sale price.
What poor pricing knowledge of their salesman! Had he told me it was the last day for that price I would have at least bought their remaining stock even if they had more than 2 bottles left and without my Dao Hang card anyway. A quick look at their website still had it listed at the sales price of $128/bottle at this moment.
I have canceled my order.
Update (16:30) : A call to the ordering phone number listed on their website comfirmed that the sale for the Rose is indeed over. However, after telling the story to the lady who answered my call, she agreed to check with the management to see if they could do anything for me.
Half an hour later, a man from the Wine Cellar called me back and said that they could give me the same sale price for this particular order. They would not be able to give me the 10% discount with Dao Hang card over the phone, but AE card could be used for 3 times the point collection which worked out to be about 6% off. I ordered 12 bottles and got free home delivery. Pretty good service.
This should be the norm, and not considered particularly good service. Our standard has simply sunked too low.
A reasonable service would be for the salesman who took your order and then discovered that the special offer had finished to discuss the matter with his manager to sort it out, then call you to inform you of the fact but still honour the special price for your order, and then ask you whether you wish to order more of the goods at the same special price in the same order.
I worked as a temporary sales assistant in one of the big department stores in Regent Street, London during the X’mas holidays in 1989. A customer wanted to find a specific fine china tea set. We didn’t have it, but the permanent staff serving the customer called a few different department stores in Central London and found a store which stocked the item, and told the customer where to go. Now that is service.
Sales people in Hong Kong sometimes really piss me off. You ask them whether they stock something, if they don’t then they shut themselves off on the spot. If one is in a certain trade, then one is supposed to know what the competitors are doing, so shutting off as soon as the customer asks for something not available here a sign of insincere and disrespect to the customer, and totally unacceptable.
Can’t agree with you more.
I was selling computers for a few years before moving on to customer service. I have done the same thing several times under similar situations over the years as your colleague did.
In this case with the wine, I wanted to stress that the lady who answered my call, who really didn’t have any first hand knowledge about the case at all did a pretty good job which resulted in my getting what I wanted within just half an hour’s time.
Check out who owns Wine Cellar. This is typical. You have to yell and cry before you get what u are ENTITLED.
Actually, I only told the lady what my story was. She just listened to my story and told me to give her my number to see what she could do. I didn’t expect she could revert the price for me. She could have simply answered me by saying that the sale was over, and that would have been the end of it. The fact that I got what I wanted at the sale price, I believe, is that I didn’t yell and cry for it. It is not my style to yell and cry.
If the sale were indeed over, I am not at all “entitled” to the sale price since I did not give them any deposit or down payment. I merely gave them my name and phone number.
The case arrived yesterday at 2:00pm like they said they would.