Dicks' Sporting Goods is the worse....not cool

You all know how I cannot stand bad customer service. The winner in 2009 so far....Dick's Sporting Goods

Talk about customer service that is unresponsive, ineffective, unempowered...but they are nice and they apologize like they were taught in customer service school!

Cripes...the customer does not want to hear an apology. They want their problem fixed.

OK the story....

I buy a Foosball table for my brother's kids for Christmas. I buy it from Dick's on line and have it shipped to Connecticut. When I arrive the table is there....thanks to UPS the box looks like it went through a war.

Mike and I break the thing open...broken sides of the the table. So I open the Pandora's box called Dicks customer service. I get the cs rep and he tells me to pack it all up and send it back. Once they get it they will credit the order and then send me another one and recharge my card. YEAH RIGHT...I tell Mr "happy" that this is unacceptable. He then puts me on hold for another 30 minutes.....that's right it took him 30 minutes to figure that great response out.

He then tells me that he will send me another one of the tables at no charge and when we get the table to try to get one table made from the two sets.....or he will send me the two sides that are broken.....He does not know which solution he can do. He tells me That I will have to call him back to get the answer after 48 hours. "I need to call you back"...yup...of course he can not make an outside telephone call.
I called back the following day to find out that they are sending a whole new table. I am, of course, back in Missouri by now. Mike gets the new table only to find out that the same parts are busted due to shipping. The box is demolished and there is little packaging in the box from the manufacturer.

I call Dick's and wait on line for 2 to 3 2o minute sessions while the customer servicve rep writes all the info down. She then informs me .....I am not the only one having this issue. They should repack the tables. The original packing is not made to be shipped through UPS. She says they will ship out a new table. I wait a week......no table.

I call, only to be put on hold for another 15 minutes.....Lot's of excuses....Lot's of apologies...seems like the last nit wit did not put in for the table replacement. So the gal tells me that she will put in for the replacement.

another week goes by......no table.
Now I am more then aggravated. The "happy" CS rep first puts me on hold for 10-15 minutes and then tells me that she sees the request over a week ago and has no idea why the vendor has not responded with a shipping confirmation. She blames it on the Martin Luther Holiday! I ask Liz to let me speak to her manager. Let's elevate the issue.....oh no...there are no managers available....I give her my cell...now I learn that Dick's has upgraded their technology and has moved into the 21st century,...they have phones that call out!

She tells me that they will call me.


Well it's been 1 month since I ordered this table. My poor brother has had to live with this mess in his basement. Not sure if I will ever get this issue resolved.

What should they have done:

Stop putting your customers on hold for 20 minutes at a time. If you do not have basic procedures for handling returns...then get some. Then handle the issue and communicate with the customer. This is not rocket science.

After your first screw up....make it easy for the customer. I in fact told them we would bring the table to a local Dick's....no, they cannot do that. They have made this a terrible experience.

wow not that was a rant!

Idiots