A friend of mine had a blog recently about companies failing us. While not every business situation is an honest transaction, most are legitimate. It made me think about many of the inside parts of customer service. Lately you will see all sorts of special deals--buy a car, get one free; lose your job and we make the payments; fill out a bunch of surveys and get something free; kids eat free.
You have to check the fine print. Companies want to make money and keep people coming to the business. Usually there are all sorts of rules that limit their exposure on these deals. Don't get mad at them because they cannot afford to give you entirely free stuff. Make sure that you understand the rules and can live with them.
The other day, I was in a fast food place that listed a discount on a kids meal. The fine print was that you had to buy a non breakfast value meal. That works fine for me and the kid. However, the employee rang up the kid's meal at regular price. I objected and referred him to the sign in the window. The claim was that the deal had not started yet. (Not so--I read the fine print first.) We called in a manager and the discount was applied.
Unfortunately, the employee was not current on how to ring up the discount with these
modern/advanced cash registers. Long ago, they punched in prices--nowdays, the employee has to put in the correctly coded sequence to make the right price appear. I don't blame the guy for not knowing how to key the discount, but I do hold him responsible for trying to fake his way through the error instead of asking the manager for help.
Caveat emptor - buyer beware. Make sure you know the fine print to the deal. If you do, it is easy to determine if you want the deal. Maybe you don't like the deal, but a better one might be available if you ask for it. We'' save that for another CSI blogisode.More CSI to come.
