I'm in the market for a new low-cost, no-frills laptop from a respectable brand. So on Saturday I got down to a little online research and stumbled over what looked like a real bargain.
According to its website, Dick Smith Electronics was offering an Acer Aspire 3623WXCi notebook. The specification wasn't exactly exciting, but the $498 price tag was.
By any standards it was a good deal, yet buying the machine proved a good deal harder than you might expect.
DSE warned this was a clearance product with limited stock. To be more specific, the site stated only three stores had the computer and, as of 2.00pm on Saturday, each of the three stores had only two or less computers in stock. It helpfully suggested phoning to check availability before making the trip to buy the laptop.
All this is perfectly fair. Dick Smith certainly wasn't making promises it couldn't keep.
It wasn't quite 3.00pm, so my chances should have been good. The store nearest me was Wyndham Street in central Auckland. I checked my bank account and gave the store a call. No answer, the voice mail told me it was outside business hours. I checked the web site, Saturday hours are 10.00 to 5.00, so I called again and again and again. According to my phone, I rang the number 18 times on Saturday -- no reply, no option to leave a message. Not good.
Sunday morning I started ringing at 10.00. The site still displayed the same availability message -- it hadn't been updated. After an hour I gave up and tried to buy it directly from the website. This was a convoluted process, that involved registering with DSE and providing an email address -- no doubt I'll start getting spammed any day now.
According to the web site, I would get a confirmation email telling my about delivery and payment options. It's now 9.00 am on Monday, nothing has arrived.
Dick Smith is a respectable business, this wasn't a scam. The price wasn't a misprint, it appeared in numerous different places on the web site. I've no reason to believe Dickies hadn't sold all the cheap Acers on a first come, first served basis. I'm disappointed, but I'm not grumbling about missing out.
My point here is there's a massive disconnect between parts of the organisation. Why tell customers to ring if you've no intention of answering the phone? Does head office even know the Wyndham Street branch doesn't answer its phones? Sure, it was the weekend, but there's no excuse if a store chooses to open at that time. Likewise, why promise confirmation emails if you don't intend to send them.
What makes this even more disappointing is that the overall Dick Smith experience it larger BETTER than with other large scale retaillers. If this is an above average performance, what do the others look like?
