A Rant....

Ok, I am going to rant here..... I had an absolutely HORRIBLE experience with OFFICE MAX.... this company is completely unprofessional and disorganized. Honestly, I cannot believe that they can stay in business with the way they operate.... I'm going to put a copy of the complaint letter that I sent to the VP/COO in the corporate office, it explains the situation in detail:

Mr. Sam Martin
Executive VP/COO
Office Max
263 Shuman Blvd.
Naperville, IL 60563

Dear Sir:
We are writing to advise you of a dismaying situation that we have experienced with your company. We have attempted multiple times to resolve the issue with customer service, to no avail, thus, we felt the necessity to alert upper management in this matter.
We decided to purchase the Vantage Desk (item# 2091 2684) from your retail store in XXXX, XX on 3/2/08. Our sales associate determined that the boxes the desk came in would not fit in our vehicle, therefore, he suggested the free delivery that Office Max was offering. He told us that we would only need to wait a few days for delivery. It was only after we were rung up that we were told that our delivery date would be on 3/10/08, 8 days later. Although it was not our preference to wait over a week for the desk, we decided to accept that delivery date.
On 3/10/08, a call was made to the customer service center to confirm that the order was to be delivered that day, and to obtain a delivery window. We were assured that we would have the desk delivered that day, and to expect it between 8 am and 5 pm. We waited at home all day for the delivery. When no delivery arrived by 5 pm, we called customer service to inquire about our delivery. The customer service representative said that she would put in a delivery trace request with the carrier and have them call us back shortly. After an hour, we called back to request that a supervisor intervene on our behalf. We spoke to Nicole, who was unable to get us an answer regarding our delivery in less than 24 to 48 hours. We find that to be unacceptable. In this age of computers, there is always a way to track shipments and packages. We requested the name of the freight carrier handling the shipment so that we could follow up personally.
The next morning (3/11/08) we spoke to Cathy at Super Sonic Transport, who kindly tracked down our shipment for us, even though she had no identifying information other than our name and address to go by. She advised us that Office Max did not have the desk available to be picked up and that our item was listed on their O.S.M.D. report and they will need to set up a new delivery arrangement.
We called customer service on 3/11/08 and spoke to a representative named Dan. We relayed the information from Cathy from Super Sonic Transport and were told that we needed to wait another 24 hours for information regarding the delivery of our desk.
On 3/12/08 we received a call from Lindsay in customer service who informed us that our desk is now on backorder, and they do not expect a shipment available until 3/17/08, with the earliest possible delivery on 3/20/08. We are now painfully aware that we will be made to wait another entire day at home for the delivery of an item that was supposed to be immediately available the day that we purchased it. Had we been aware of the inconvenience of Office Max’s delivery practices, we would have made other arrangements to obtain the desk from the store the same day it was purchased. We should not be made to wait 3 weeks for an item that was not on backorder when it was purchased.
We are extremely displeased with the service level at Office Max. The Vantage Desk was the first large purchase we have made with your company. We are now reconsidering ordering any more furniture and supplies for our office as a result of the poor treatment that we received. We understand that time is money, and our time was wasted waiting for a delivery for 8 hours that never came, and it was wasted chasing down information over the telephone over several days to obtain basic information regarding a delivery. We value our time, and we do not want to be made to wait any longer for this order.
We hope that by bringing this to your attention it will help to spur you to action in making serious changes in your customer service, distribution and supply chain management for Office Max. Not many customers will take the time to express their displeasure in this manner; they will simply stop purchasing their office supplies from you. We are giving you the opportunity to correct this problem and to keep a customer.

So that's the letter....I sent it off to the corporate office yesterday and I hope that I get a response. The issue has yet to be resolved, as the delivery date for my new desk is not until the 20th. My gut feeling is that this item was in backorder all along, and they were too STUPID to tell me when we bought it. They had it in stock at the store that day, I would have had them hold it until the next day when I could have had a friend or relative come pick it up for me. The whole process broke down from the store level, and moved all the way down from there. The sales associate should have informed us that the desk would be coming from a central distribution center, and not the store directly. He never once mentioned that the desk wasn't being delivered locally. So now as I am sitting here publishing this blog, I am in an office of disarray because I had anticipated the arrival of the desk 4 days ago and I don't want to re-organize this stuff only to have to take it all apart again when we get the desk next week...that is IF it arrives at all.

Moral of the story... Don't buy anything from Office Max if it requires their "free delivery" it's not going to be free....it will cost you valuable time and a lot of aggravation. And if I wasn't at home looking for work, I would be DOUBLY pissed that I had taken a day off from a job to wait at home for a delivery that never came. Get your crap together Office Max!! You need to start confirming delivery appointments, and confirming that the delivery was received. If you had followed up on the shipment, then it wouldn't have taken 24-48 hours to get an answer. I got my answer from the freight carrier myself and only had to wait an hour to get it. So it's not beyond the realm of possibility. I know how freight works, I used to work in a company that shipped goods and used carriers to do it. And I am thoroughly aware of the fact that all of this info is available as tracking online, as the carriers often scan the merchandise as it is loaded on the truck, and then scan when it arrives so that info is immediately available electronically and uploaded onto a computer...it's always available you idiots....I wasn't born yesterday!! I probably know more about that process than you all do anyway!!!

So that's my rant for today.... to be continued after I get my desk....

That's it and that's all folks!!!!