Dear Canadian Tire – This Is How You Do It, Baby

Tags

business, Canadian business, Canadian Tire, climbers, customer service, play sets, Toys R Us

I have to say, my previous post was the first I have ever made about poor customer service which did not get an immediate response from the involved company’s social media representatives.

Even though I directly tweeted my post to Canadian Tire, no one from Canadian Tire has emailed me or tweeted back apologizing for the bad experience or offering a solution, which is what companies like Chapters and Future Shop did in the past.

I was hoping they would, because I still wanted that f*%^ing climber, and I still wanted to support a Canadian company.

But they didn’t.

So I went to Toys R Us.

Where everything was done right.

I’ve decided to break it down, so that in case Canadian Tire ever actually decides to try and leave the stone age, they will have a handy guide.

How To Sell A Product To A Customer.

Toys R Us happened to have the exact same climber that Canadian Tire had, but they also had more information – like the NAME OF THE MANUFACTURER. Turns out that it’s a Step2 product, like the Skyway Summit thing I was looking at. If the Canadian Tire site had mentioned that it was Step2, then I (OR THE CANADIAN TIRE EMPLOYEES) could have gotten the dimensions from the Step2 website.

Even better, we didn’t actually need the dimensions because Toys R Us not only had their climbers prominently on display, but actually set up so you could walk around them and SEE their dimensions.

Toys R Us had the product IN STOCK.

Toys R Us employees knew where the product was.

Toys R Us also had the product ON SALE. $100 off, in fact.

So there you have it – we confirmed that it could fit, and then brought home the climber we wanted (with some help from our awesome neighbours with the giant van) for cheaper.

WITHOUT ANY USELESS AT ALL.

I want to support Canadian businesses. I do. One by one, they’re going out of business or getting bought out by giant American box store brands.

But how can I support them when they don’t even seem to give a crap about getting my money, basically refusing to give me the product I want after I visit TWO locations AND tweet them about it… and then a big American company actually makes it easier and cheaper for me to get what I want?

Canadian Tire, if you go out of business some day, this is why. THIS. Right here. You don’t need to hire other companies to help you figure out what sucks. I’ve got it written down for you already.

Dear Canadian Tire. I have money. I would like to exchange it for goods and services.

Tags

bad customer service, business, Canadian Tire, climbers, play sets, Step 2, Toys R Us

Now that our yard is almost habitable (there’s still the ant problem, but we’re working on it) PH and I are beginning to dream big – like, maybe, we could put something out there for Owl to play on.

We’ve talked a lot about what that might be, but we are constricted by two things:

1. Our yard has the dimensions of a postage stamp

and

2. Our yard is built four feet up on a retaining wall, and the fence blows in the breeze:

So we need something that will fit in our yard without giving Owl the opportunity of tumbling directly into or over our fence.

Everything we have looked at has either been not awesome enough, or FAR TOO AWESOME for our yard.