staples.ca (Canada) - customer service review

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132Herndon's review of Staples www.staples.com

“staples.ca (Canada) - customer service review”

★☆☆☆☆

written by 132Herndon on 03/09/2015

I needed an all-in-one print/scan/fax/copy printer. The functionality of the Epson WF-2650 looked good and the price was right. So I ordered it from staples.ca. The online store return policy is 30 days. I tested it and it seemed to work ok. Then 2 months from when I purchased it I printed a colour chart and noticed that near the edge it left a blank stripe instead of the lines that should be there. And then I noticed that the background colour to several boxes was missing. This seemed odd. I reckoned it was a firmware upgrade issue, so I contacted Epson tech support back and forth for a few hours, going through their process to id the issue. They couldn't identify what was wrong. So I contacted staples.ca customer support and they parroted "30 days" till I told them to put me through to their VP responsible for Customer Support. The manager who responded was very professional but gave me the same policy line. I had discovered I had a lemon that Epson tech support couldn't fix, I had the printer for 60 days, and they wouldn't refund me, although I could have a refurbished one through Epson (sure, another lemon?). In the end, they settled on a $50 refund and refunding the additional cartridges I had bought.
If that wasn't enough, I had ordered three XL (extended life) colour cartridges for the printer. Initially they stated 1 week for shipping. When that week was up, I got an email stating it would take a further 4 weeks. I always have extra cartridges available for when I run out. However, the partial cartridges that come with the printer are stated as only there for testing. And I had a lot of colour printing to do. The customer support agent kindly cancelled the special order for me, which I appreciated. My point is that they should never run out of printer cartridges. Just like I order in advance, they should also.
My view is that they should have apologized for the lemon and refunded me the whole amount, then encouraged me to purchase another brand. But they clearly aren't interested in my business. Policies should reflect the realities of the marketplace, which in the internet marketplace means viewing the customer as almost always right. They should also not treat customers as potential criminals out to rip off the company, but should honour customers as potential long-term business partners who will refer them and do repeat business with them. Clearly, staples.ca has the former view. So I'll be buying technology from amazon.ca from now on since my experience has been that their customer service has the latter view.

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