Customer Service

awesomefrog

Member
Hi everybody. I hope this is the right way to go about this. My sister-in-law and her fiancé had a really bad experience at Petland in Janesville, WI. And even though most of the people in our group go more to reef stores for stuff, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to let you all know what happened.

Anyway, knowing that I’ve started up a reef tank, my sister thought it would be nice to give me a gift card to a pet store. It was a really nice thought, but she went to Petland in Janesville. Knowing that I live over an hour from Janesville, she made sure to ask if the gift card would be good at the Petland in Rockford. The manager who sold her the gift card said, yes, it would be good at the Rockford store as well. It was a gift card for $10, and I went to Rockford to get a chromis or something small with it. It turns out that they wouldn’t accept the card. So I asked my sister if she might be able to trade it in Janesville for one that would be good in Rockford. Not a big deal, right? Wrong.

My sister told me that when she and her fiancé went to try trading the card, the manager on duty tried to be helpful, but the owner was extremely rude. They described the situation to the owner, and he called them liars, saying nobody would have told them the card was good anywhere else. He said he would not give them a different card or a refund. Unfortunately, the manager who had sold the card was not working that day. And when they described what she looked like, the owner told them that they were lying to him and that nobody who fit that description worked at the store. When they looked up the number on the receipt and proved that it was actually one of the store’s managers who sold the card, the owner again said they were lying and that the manager would have never told them the card would be good in Rockford. As you can imagine my sister and her fiancé were very upset at how they had been treated. So my soon-to-be-brother-in-law told the owner that they had very poor customer service and that he would not shop there again or recommend that store to others. The owner replied by telling them that he didn’t care. He said to them that they obviously didn’t have pets so they wouldn’t shop there anyway and that I wouldn’t drive up there to shop, so he really didn’t care whether they shopped there or who they might talk to and the owner called my almost-brother a punk.

It would have been one thing to simply say “I’m sorry about the confusion, but all sales are final”. But to call people names and accuse them of lying is simply a terrible way to treat anybody, much less customers of your store. Considering that this was all over a matter of $10, you would think the owner of a store would be more than happy to accommodate any customer. It’s not like he would have even lost any money in the deal.

My sister called the Petland corporate office to tell them about what happened, and the woman at corporate told them that they had received a number of complaints about that particular owner. So I thought I would share what happened with all of you. I don’t know if any of you do pet shopping in the Janesville area, but I would warn anyone you know about the owner there.

I know this is a long story and it might not affect many people in the Rockford Reefers club. But since it was such a painful story to hear from my sister, who only wanted to do something nice for me, I wanted to make sure nobody else that I knew wound up being treated with the same disrespect when looking for fish or saltwater supplies.
 
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Over $10!
Do you want a Chroims? I will pick one up for you and give it to you an your sisters behalf, but not from petlans of course!
I could tell you dozens of stores where in my retail career I have made it right by guests for way more than $10. Like one lady who I gave $150+ worth of stuf for free. Very long story, b ut my store looked like a bunch of idiots and wasteed half an hour of this ladies time, who had 2 kids in tow.

$10 blows my mind how short sighted some are.
The store phone number is (608) 756-9380
I say we call and ask for the owner, then ask if we can use a Rockford gift card there. If we all do this, perhaps he will get the point.
It will only take a second of your time, and will be fun.
 
It's so crazy to think that any store owner would openly tell customers that he doesn't care about them. I can understand having a bad day at work or not wanting to deal with difficult customers, but this was just nuts. And my sister and her fiance are really easygoing and respectful people. I know they would have gone into this situation with care and understanding, and not try to cause anyone a headache--especially over 10 bucks.
 
Wow, its not often a thread can get my blood boiling. Im so sorry that happend to your sister. I get up that way once in awhile, maybee Ill stop in & ..... antagonize the owner alittle..... I cant believe he would call a customer a liar to her face . He should consider himself lucky he was dealing w/ easygoing & respectful people. But that is how a bully usually operates.
 
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