Wednesday 4 August 2010

The Glorious Consumer


A Feature For Next Week Brought Forward Due To A Case Of Customer Service FAIL!


I've decided to discuss the various retailers that we use for our Warhammer purchases in a series of posts on The Glorious Works. I've currently got four separate orders with Maelstrom Games placed and I'm waiting to see how they do with each of these before posting a review up here. In the mean time I want to have a bit of a moan about something...



Image property of Games Workshop

Now I normally hold Games Workshop's customer service in very high regard. It's something I take very seriously when I make decisions about where to shop and one thing that I've always thought reflected very well on Games Workshop as a company was the great customer service skills of the majority of their staff, especially when dealing with the team in Nottingham after making purchases online etc. However, my recent order has completely sullied this view and left me feeling very disappointed.

To their credit, they processed and dispatched the order quite quickly and the majority of what I've received I'm happy with. Amidst my order were two of the Bretonnian Horses Bitz packs. Now these were a bone of contention with me to begin with. The Bretonnian Horses aren't the prettiest and £8 for 5 of the ugly bleeders felt a little steep. Doing the rounds of the various bits websites and ebay sellers I found that most had none or if they did sold 5 or 6 of the exact same horse in groups which would lead to very little variety and mean I'd have to buy more horses than I needed to get a vaguely interesting looking unit. This would however, have saved me anywhere between £2 and £4 depending on where I placed the order. But I decided to bite the bullet and pay that little bit extra as the product picture on the GW website shows the four different heads available and 1 of the 2 bodies. Nowhere on that product page does it mention that the bitz pack contents can vary. It certainly doesn't say anywhere that if you order two of them for the extortionate sum of £16 that they'll send you 10 of the same horse! I have 10 of the horse on the front right of the picture below. A little disappointed with this aspect of the order I quite happily phoned GW customer service as in the past they've always been quite helpful when there's been any sort of issue with my orders, so I expected to get this quickly rectified!


Image Property of Games Workshop

I was met with a very bored and uninterested customer service representative who explained in slightly more words that basically it was my problem. If I want I can send them back and they'll send out another pack but chances are it'll be just the same! Now I'd maybe be a little more accepting of this answer (although not the disinterested way in which it was given) if the product description warned me that I might get cloned horses but it doesn't and the picture implies that I'll at least get plenty of variety out of the heads if nothing else.


Image Property of Games Workshop

So now I have three choices: I can send back one of the packs and ask for an exchange and pray that they put in some different heads in the next one; I can suffer and make do with what I've paid a lot of money for so that I can convert a unit that ultimately I'm not going to be as happy with as I could have been; or, I can send them back asking for my money back as the product doesn't meet my requirements or match up to what is seemingly promised and save myself some money ordering from the various bits websites like I should have in the first place!
The third option seems the best choice right now and will certainly be followed up with avoiding purchasing direct from GW as much as possible in the future!

Anyway, rant over, the review for Maelstrom Games will be posted once I have received all of my orders. May their customer service be better than Games Workshops should I end up calling them to find out about my orders...

I'd love to hear your views on this post and future ones regarding other retailers!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Wait a day, then ring again and try and get a more sympathetic employee! ;)

Elazar The Glorified said...

Yes, I was considering that as option number 4 and number 5 would be to say that I'm missing five heads and see what they do...! :)

Karitas said...

This is odd.

I recently had some miscast kasrkin, and raised that i thought it might be an issue with the mold. (as the miscast was on two iterations of the same mini)
the CS rep I dealt with asked me which on the (numbered, i grant you) troopers i would prefer as replacements and i have received them.

I suggest you send a pack of clones back to the gw customer service adress, with a note explaining the problem and asking for a variety to be sent in return.

i'd be very surprised if you didnt get it.

eriochrome said...

The picture clearly shows 4 different heads so I would give it another try on the CS phone line. Another thing you could do in the future if you have a GW store near you is order your direct stuff through them. Then you get to complain in person to someone who cares about you business since it affects his pay.

Anonymous said...

See, this is tricky, and really shows why we miss the old way of GW bitz service.

In the past, the Trolls took a more personal, hands-on, hobbiest to hobbiest approach.

Now, it's more, almost, mechanized.

I am sure there's guys who want matching horses for some-such reason. In the past, the CS people would know what exactly you wanted, because they would have talked with you.

Now, there's no reason for the person to be disinterested (which might actually be favorable to getting "Waaagh!" bellowed into your ear over the phone), but maybe the original selection was a matter of the puller thinking too much. Conversely, the puller may not have even cared to look.

So I am fence-sitting here it seems, and a bit of a GW apologist. Fancy that.

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