I had the most awful experience in the newly branded Currys-PC World joint venture the other day. I was looking for a laptop so I could make my work portable between the home and office, but wasn’t quite sure which make and model to go for. I browsed the examples on display for a few moments, not really knowing what I was doing, the whole time waiting for a member of staff to come over and help me. No one came to my aid for 20 minutes.
In this day an age, this total lack of customer service is unacceptable. This is not the first time such a thing has happened either, a while ago I was on a mystery shopper assignment in the store. My task was to wait for a member of staff to offer help, then ask about some PC Components. Yet again the staff didn’t even pay attention to the fact that I looked as though I needed hlep.
Even when you do ask staff for assistance in one of these stores, not just PC World but Dixons, Currys and the other big name consumer electronics retailers, the staff don’t have the first clue what they’re on about. I’d put put money on most of them not being able to differentiate a hard drive from a CPU unit. This is a real problem because the market for computer hardware is so vast and complicated that most consumers are going to need help at some point.
I believe that specialist retails are the way forward, yes they are more expensive but I’d rather pay a bit more and know I was getting the correct item than trust the spotty teenager in PC World. Whether you use a physical shop or an online retailer, you cannot put a price on product knowledge, trust the experts to help you make the right choice.
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