Walmart is Not My Friend

On December 1, I ordered almost all of my Christmas presents online. I checked to make sure everything was in stock and would arrive well in time for Christmas. My order included several things from Walmart, so I decided to use their Site-to-Store option to save a few $. The website says that once an item ships it should take 7-10 days.

Several days after all of the other packages had arrived, I got a note from Walmart saying my packages were delay in transit and would arrive on the 22nd. I was annoyed, and a bit concerned, but figured that I’d still have them by Christmas. Several days after that, I received another note saying my packages were delayed, but that they would arrive by the 19th. Ok, that makes no sense, but I was feeling a bit more confident that they’d arrive on time.

The 19th came, and two of the packages were in, but not the 3rd. So, today (the 22nd) I called to find out if the package is expected to be in (the website has not been updated). I couldn’t find a customer service number, so I called my local store. I explained the situation to the woman on the phone, who said, “Oh, most of those orders take 3 weeks to come in.” I replied, “The website says 7-10 days.” She said (and I’m not exaggerating here), “Well, you can’t believe everything on the website.” Huh? If I can’t trust the shipping information on your website, how can I decide if an item will arrive in time? As I was in the process of saying something along these lines, she abruptly transferred me to another line without saying anything. Now I’m angry instead of just being a little frustrated. The person she transferred me to said that I had to call the 1-800 customer number because they have no information in the store. Fine.

I called the 1-800 number and waited on hold for 10 minutes. To her credit, the woman who finally answered the phone was reasonably pleasant. She told me that the order should have arrived on the 19th and that she would call the store (who claimed they had no information) to find out what is going on. It seems that they may have lost my order after all that. She told me, with no sense of irony whatsoever, that if they couldn’t find it, they would just refund my money. Excuse me? I’ve waited three weeks for an item that you lost and just a couple of days before Christmas you’re going to pretend that refunding my money is good customer service?

That’s not the best part, though. The best part is that the item I ordered is apparently AVAILABLE IN THE STORE. Now they expect me to pay full price for an item that I bought on sale and never received. I don’t think so, Walmart.

My advice to you? Work out the kinks in your Site-to-Store system. If the item is already IN the store, you shouldn’t bother shipping it out. Just have them set one aside. Or, at least, find a way to make sure products arrive at the store when they’re supposed to. And, most importantly, how about some customer service training for your phone reps? If a customer calls to inquire about an order, they should be treated with basic respect, especially when they are handling the situation calmly and in a polite manner.