Customer Service....Where Did it Go?

I went to a major home improvement store over the weekend to purchase much needed shower doors. I was told by my home improvement guy to purchase the doors, and he will pick them up later that day or the next day. Cool. No problem. I've done that before. I go to the store, find the model number to what I need, go to the register to pay for it. Well, the cashier rings me up, I pay, leave the store feeling like I've accomplished something, feeling happy because I'm finally getting rid of the horrible shower doors I have up now. Ring! Ring! That's my cell ringing, a call from my home improvement guy telling me that the doors I just purchased are not in stock. Huh? Not in stock? Didn't I just pay the cashier for them? He tells me that I have to come back to the store, get a refund, and then go to another store in the area to repurchase. Can't they call the store, have them shipped to their store for the inconvenience? Nope! Why wouldn't the cashier alert me that they do not have those doors in stock before I paid for them? At this point, I'm heated! It's cold out. Really cold. I have to leave the warmth of my home to hop back in my car, go back to the store to get my refund. I made the mistake of not taking cash back, and advised "Customer Service" to place the funds back in my acct. Big Mistake! I check my acct a couple days later, and to my surprise, NO FUNDS! I call the store, and they tell me that it may take up to 14 days for the funds to be credited to my acct. Wow! It only took a couple of seconds for them to debit the money from my acct.

All this makes me wonder.........What happened to the motto, "The customer comes first" or "The customer is always right"? What happened to businesses actually wanting to keep their customers happy? I admit, it was my fault for not taking the cash back option for my refund, but would I have had to go through all of this if the cashier would have told me initially that the doors I was paying for were not in stock? That to me would have demonstrated excellent customer service. Why have your customer pay for something that you don't have? This is not the only incident of poor customer service that I've experienced, just the most recent one. I could go on and on about it, but I won't. I'm sure all of us have some stories to tell.

With all that being said, my tidbit for today is.............................IF YOU WORK IN CUSTOMER SERVICE, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, SERVE YOUR CUSTOMER!