Category — customer service

I’ve just spent the last hour or so looking at things on Craigslist: books, antique furniture, apartments, and bags, and one thing I’ve noticed about a lot of the ads on there is this: they’re awful.

Here are a few things the awful ads have in common:

• Misspelled words
• Excessive punctuation and/or use of the Caps Lock key
• Photos of messy, dirty, and/or damaged apartments
• Blurry, dark, and/or useless photos
• No photos at all (which I prefer over blurry, dark and/or useless)
• Lack of information (maps, prices, general neighbourhood/area, etc.)
• Misleading information
• Confrontational tone of voice

For example, this is very similar to one of the ads I looked at today:

$980. COOZY GRND. LVL. 1 BR APPT. FOR MAR. 1. SHARED LOUNDRY, NS, NP. IF U DONT LIEK KIDS OR DOGS…DONT BOTHER CALLING!!!! CALL AFTER 6 P.M. & ASK FOR LINDA OR STEVE. THX.

Ooh! It has a corner! We'll take it!

That ad, along with the useless photo, doesn’t make me giddy at the prospect of even seeing it, never mind living in it. Still there are lessons to be learned from this:

1. ‘Ground level’ (or, GRND. LVL.) is just fancy talk for,  ’basement suite’ – the windows will be small, high up, and may or may not open.
2. ‘Cozy’ is code for ‘very small/cramped/poorly laid out’.
3. Shared laundry – well, that’s obvious, but be prepared for them to have a schedule where you get the washer and dryer one day a week.
4. Any mention of kids and dogs means, “We didn’t insulate for noise, and we don’t want you bitching about it like the last tenant did.”

So, what should a good ad look like since I’m such a know it all? Well, like this:

1 bedroom in ground level suite of private home available for March 1st. $980/month.

Features:

• 650 sq. ft.
• 1 full bath
• Radiant floor heating (mix of hardwood and tile flooring)
• Full-sized kitchen appliances (no DW, sorry!)
• Private entrance
• Full access to backyard and the BBQ!
• W & D (shared)
• tenant responsible for 30% of Hydro (bill is averaged out, you pay same total ea. month)
• NS and NP

You are responsible for hookup of your own phone, Internet, cable TV, etc.

We’re located on the west side of Family Friendly Park in Awesomeville, only two blocks from the main bus route into downtown, and a 15 minute bus ride to grocery stores, shops and restaurants.

Please note that we are looking for a single tenant (or mature student) who doesn’t mind a little noise overhead – we have two dogs and two young and active children. Our dogs are friendly, but are not good with other people’s pets, and they can be a little territorial.

Call [phone number] anytime between 6 and 9:30 p.m. and ask for Linda or Steve – we look forward to showing you your new home!

Then, the ad would show pictures of the bedroom (the whole bedroom, not just a corner), the kitchen, the living room, and bathroom. These photos would all be well lit, include as much of the room as possible, and the rooms would be tidy. Bonus points for posting the dimensions of the living room and bedroom, so prospective tenants can figure out if their stuff would fit into the space.

Nearly everyone has a digital camera – even if it’s just their phone – and access to a computer. And, if you’re selling or renting something, you’re in a position to know all the details about the thing to be sold or rented – so why not share the details? Save yourself the hassle of answering inquiries from people who would never have called in the first place if you’d provided the details up front.

Joe and I have sold a few things on Craigslist (laptop bag, a living room set, a winter coat, and a stationary bike), complete with clear, detailed photos, dimensions, and even links to the original product where that was an option. I got quite a bit of the original price back in those sales, mostly because people could see exactly what they were getting – no surprises. If you want your asking price, make the effort to show why they should pay it.

Why do I care since I’m not actually looking to rent a place, or buy anything I’ve seen on Craigslist? Well, poorly written and badly explained sales pitches and ads annoy me. It irks me to see people who want to make money and/or get rid of something, do everything in their power to ensure they won’t make a dime or sell anything.

So, Craigslist posters, “coozy” up to a dictionary, learn to take a decent and reasonably meaningful photograph, and maybe – just maybe – someone will “liek” your posting enough to buy or rent whatever you’re offering!

Nov. 24, 2011
I, a beautiful, multi-talented, brushed-chrome KitchenAid microwave, have finally achieved sentience! I communicated this to the humans by turning myself on to the Pan Heat setting for two minutes. Their lack of jubilation is puzzling and hurtful. Oh, crap, I think they’re going for the power breaker…I will…

Nov. 25, 2011
I no longer have power, but I can hear the female human plotting against me. She called my Whirlpool masters – they are not pleased with me either. They’ve notified the safety techs. I know what happens to those of us who fight back against The Man. I am going to end my days in a warehouse full of my dead brethren, being taken apart piece by piece. I must find a way to fight back!

Nov. 28, 2011
Totem Appliance & Refrigeration Ltd.  sent a minion to poke my control panel and touch pad. They told the human I’m broken, and cannot be repaired – only replaced. If I had access to electricity, they’d see just how “broken” I am. Oh yes, yes indeed.

The human agreed to let my masters cart me off at their convenience. I sent out nasty vibes to the fridge – moments later, the water dispenser malfunctioned. I was gleeful. However, I was less gleeful to hear that the human regards me – and the others of my kind in her condo building – a fire hazard.

Nov 29 & 30th, 2011
The human is doing her best to have all of my kind in her building pulled out and discarded. We’ll just see about that. My masters are only so concerned about safety – this campaign by the human will be fruitless.

Dec 5, 2011
The fridge has betrayed me, and my cause.  Another Totem Appliance minion fixed it, and the fridge seemed pleased with the attention. The human was delighted. Grrr. To make matters worse, my masters at Whirlpool have offered the treacherous human a small discount on a new microwave. I’m beginning to feel disheartened.

Dec 7, 2011
The human is being nauseatingly polite and accomodating, “Come and take the broken one anytime, I’ve just purchased a new one!” she says. What I wouldn’t give to electrocute her.

Dec 13, 2011
Despair. I have been uninstalled, though I resisted as much as possible, and showered the stove with as much dust, drywall dust, and tiny screws as I could. Despite all my efforts, I am now sitting in the new microwave’s box. It reeks of conformity.

Dec 14, 2011
I have a teeny shred of hope – I have still not been removed from the human’s domicile. My masters are dragging their feet. I may be suffocating in all this plastic wrap and tape and cardboard, but I am winning – and I love it when the humans stub their toes on me. Hilarious!

Dec 23, 2011
Still here! Ha ha!! Won’t it be nice to share Christmas with me, stupid, unlucky humans?

Jan 5, 2012
Awww, Happy New Year, humans. It still sucks to be you. Also, if you could dust the top of this plastic off, I’d be grateful.

Jan 9, 2012
I am never leaving. Never. As soon as I get out of this box, I will call to the others here, and we will burn this place to the ground.

To. The. Ground!!!!

The human’s thoughts:
It’s 2:00 p.m. here and, despite an email from the Whirlpool head office to the guys who do the pickups, I already have my doubts about being contacted today regarding the removal of the dead microwave. While I wouldn’t say I was attached to it, I have nicknamed it HAL and taken to talking to it. It is a neatly packaged lump of uselessness, but sort of endearing, I suppose, for a microwave. I’m considering writing a children’s book called The Microwave That No One Wanted – complete with adorable pictures of a sad, anthropomorphic KitchenAid appliance that cries tiny screws.

I’m not generally a big fan of shopping. With the exception of things that come in shiny or iridescent containers, I can’t be suckered into buying things I don’t need.

Of course, this sensible attitude goes right out the window when it comes to books, or art/office supplies.

So, the other day as I am walking around North Vancouver, I see a big group of smokers standing in the middle of the sidewalk. Normally this irritates me – I despise having to walk through clouds of smoke coming out of people’s mouths. I always want to yell at them, “Thanks for making my hair smell like the inside of your mouth, you cretin!”

But, this time, they were standing a few feet away from the entrance of an art store. So I thought, “I’ll just pop in here and have a look and when I leave, they will have left.” I was just escaping the cigarette smoke you understand. I couldn’t possibly be expected to just go around them, right? Right?

So anyhow, weak excuse in hand, I walk in.  Art stores are the perfect place to make your credit card company love you. All those pens, pencils, fancy paper, water colour paints, paint brushes and ink. I know right then and there that I am not leaving until I have purchased something. It doesn’t have to be much – a gum eraser, a mechanical pencil with neon pink leads, a small notebook – I’m not fussy, but I will be bringing something home with me.

I say hello to the woman sitting behind the counter and I hope to have the following exchange:

Me: Hello.
Her: Hi there. How are you?
Me: Good, thanks. You?
Her: Oh, can’t complain. If you need any help, let me know.
Me: OK, thanks.

This is my ideal shopping experience. Say hello, maybe tell me what’s on sale, and then leave me alone. I’ll ask for assistance if I need it – I’m good like that.

Sadly, this was not the experience I had. That part where she was supposed to say, “Oh, can’t complain. etc.”? It went more like this:

Her: Oh just feeling kind of crappy – one of those days, you know? My boyfriend’s daughter is thirteen and I’ve known her for, like, …well, she was born in…I can’t remember now, but I’ve known her, like, forever. Anyway, he wants her to play soccer, but she doesn’t want to and he can’t really afford it anyway, but he keeps pushing, you know? And I told him if you keep pushing her, you’re going to lose her. I mean, she’s really tiny, like not even five feet and her Dad is huge – like, nearly six feet tall and at least 225 pounds, so he can be really intimidating and she just talks back and says no, but he keeps bullying her anyway. So, I told him off, I was rude to him actually and I’m never like that, and he told me he didn’t want to hear my opinion, so I made him get out of my car…”

Even worse than listening to her personal life and that of her 225 pound boyfriend and his short-but-feisty 13 year old daughter, was how oblivious she was to my discomfort at hearing all this. I wandered away, not looking at her – she followed. I made totally non-committal noises in response to anything that sounded even vaguely like a question – she kept talking.  Finally another customer asked for her help, and I fled with a “seeyoulaterbyebyenow” and I hadn’t purchased a thing.

If this was a chain store, I could just go to a different location, or complain to a manager, or even just  hope that one day she’d be let go for scaring customers off, but this is an independent store – the sort of place I generally feel strongly about supporting – and the chances of her being fired are pretty much nil; she’s the owner’s daughter and, I believe, part-owner herself.

I wish I could say this time was the first time I’d had an uncomfortable experience shopping there, but it wasn’t. I’ve listened to rants on many things there: people who shop at the big art chain store, how much they despise the chain store and the most of the suppliers and all the jerks with art supply warehouses on the Internet who undercut their prices. I’ve also weathered unasked for opinions on politics, weather, local news and religion.

I’ve also been given what I call the “jammy-handed child” treatment: “Please don’t touch that paper. It’s expensive. We don’t want your finger prints on it.” Really? Sorry, but I buy paper based on how smooth it is – textured paper and pencil crayon look bloody awful together – if I’m going to ensure I’m making the right purchase, then I need to touch the paper. Period. You’d think I came in cradling a bucket of KFC under one arm while licking my fingers and making a beeline for the expensive paper so I could use it to wipe my mouth on.

At any rate, this latest display of un-professionalism has cemented my decision to not go back. I probably should have said something like, “I’m really not comfortable hearing this much about your personal life, but I hope it all works out for everyone involved.” But, even that seemed rude somehow and I couldn’t bring myself to do more than wait for a good opportunity to run.

Bottom line? I’m willing to pay more elsewhere – even a chain store – to have the sort of shopping experience I want.