OK, I've come up with a letter!
bonj towers
etc
8th Sept 2008
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to express my extreme displeasure at the disgraceful incompetence of either your online service, the staff in your ****** ********* branch, or more probably both.
I reserved some cable cutters, reservation number ##########, and chose to pick them up from the ***** store where according to the website they were apparently in stock. I cycled the 12 miles to the store (on a bike which incidentally is a lot better than any of the piles of shite you have to offer) which had just opened, and once inside I was greeted by an admission that the bikehut staff found putting up a pointless orange 'tent' outside (whose only purpose seemed to be to advertise the fact that you ‘fit things to cars’) slightly more important than serving me, however I was patient because I still at this point believed that the cable cutters would materialise.
After about 10 minutes of witnessing the hapless morons fruitlessly search for the cable cutters, and another 10 witnessing them pointlessly attempt to look like they were still searching for them but only just managing to maintain the (false) pretence that they still held out hope that such a product was in the building - clearly looking in places they'd already looked, I suggested to these numpties that their finely honed skills were wasted here and would obviously be far more at home organizing a piss up in a brewery, but before they set off in an attempt to put their hand to that, that they should also tidy up the products which were on the floor due to me having had to tip them out of a box in search for the cable cutters that they were too inept to find.
Their only thoughts on why it might be the case that your website had said this tool was in stock at the ****** branch when this was completely not true, were that stock levels don’t account for theft. Just for the sake of argument assuming I even believe the claim that people go into Halfords to steal own brand cable cutters, then if this is a problem for you can I suggest one way to prevent theft of cable cutters, the (empty) peg for which is located directly behind the bikehut counter, would be to have people manning the bikehut counter for a greater percentage of the store opening times?
I eventually had to travel to the ****** store in order to buy the cable cutters (reservation number ##########). I’m still slightly disappointed by them, as it says on the description that they have an “Integrated end crimper and deburing blade.”
They don’t have an “Integrated end crimper”, and please don’t insult my intelligence by suggesting I don’t know what an integrated end crimper is because I have used Park Tools cable cutters before and they actually have got a crimper. What would appear to be the “deburing (sic) blade” is present, however I’m still at a loss as to what I would want to ‘debur’ with it. Any thoughts on that?
I do not want you to write to me promising me a £10 voucher and then never bother to actually send it like the last time I complained about something, and I do not want you to ignore this letter and throw it in the bin, I want you to actually do something about improving your level of service to customers and try to avoid reducing the amount of them you send on wild goose chases with your wildly inaccurate hollow promises of things that then don’t exist. You’re a big company – you have the necessary buying power to ensure you don’t have any dips in stock levels of basic tools. There’s no excuse – just sort it! Maybe if you concentrated on improving your service levels rather than putting fake plastic double crowns on the forks of ‘full suspension’ bikes for under a hundred quid you may not be seen as so much of a laughing stock among serious cyclists!
Yours slightly less faithfully than would be ideal,
bonj
