Yesterday the internet briefly sparked into life as blogger Fawndoo posted up his appraisal of one of GAME’s high street branches – in particular, the apparent behaviour and language of the store’s manager.
The blog details his version of events as the author says he tried to redeem his Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 pre-order and the aftermath of not having both slips of paper with him. Whilst the initial sales assistant remained well mannered and polite, he alleges that the manager did not.
I know the branch in question – Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street GAME is a big one, and normally staffed by polite enough guys that, whilst obviously subscribing to the GAME approach, have never bothered me in the way the blogger reports.
[drop2]”The manager,” says Fawndoo, “immediately took a belligerent and aggressive tone. Even his body language was confrontational. There was nothing about this man that suggested he was there to manage the situation, explain matters and possibly find a solution.”He alleges the manager wouldn’t accept the pre-order because there was nothing on the receipt to confirm that the £5 deposit was valid – something the blogger disputes with some enthusiasm – but it’s the mannerisms that seem most off, apparently suggesting that Fawndoo take his business elsewhere.
“Take it or leave it” is a repeated mantra.
It’s well worth a read, if only to get a grip on how to write up a restrained, considered complaint. Certainly, GAME themselves have taken notice and replied, even if the reply doesn’t quite cover the personal apology the blogger requested.
“The service you have described falls way short of the high standards we would expect and as I indicated earlier your comments have been forwarded to the Regional Manager responsible for the Glasgow store,” says the official response from GAME.
“The Regional Manager will investigate your concerns and address the service issues you have raised.”
This, admittedly, sounds like the way complaints should normally be dealt with – moving up through the chain of command in an official capacity. Whilst the apologies – one from head office and one from the manager of the store – may both never emerge, at least the power of the internet (mainly Twitter, to be honest) has got the high street store to take some action, and quickly.
I know friends that work in GAME, past and present, and don’t normally have any issues at all although I’ve not pre-ordered anything with them for years. The incident in question sounds rather uncomfortable (we skipped the most barbed comments) and hope it gets concluded soon.
We’ve reached out to GAME for comment.
Update: it seems that GAME have, at the bloggers request, put a donation in for Macmillan’s Cancer Support of the full value of the game, including the pre-order. Lovely. Are we all smiling now?
jimmy-google
What Game is about was summed up for me recently when a friend went into buy Battlefield 3 and they tried to sell him a second hand copy and an online pass costing more than the new copy.
I haven’t found going into Game an enjoyable experience since Electronics Boutique bought them. Strangley I liked EB before that. Now they’ve managed to ruin gamestation as well.
tatoemonkey
spot on
MayContainEvil
Just to add my two cents in, the GAME stores we have in Australia mostly seem pretty good, though I usually shop at EB I’ve never had any trouble with them. If anything I would say that their staff is usually more knowledgable than the competition, if also more persistent in trying to sell me their crap.
sideshow
That’s my local GAME! But I haven’t been in there for a while; I decided to spend my money in less scummy places. Namely: G-Force, on Union Street.
a inferior race
I have actually tried to contact Game on four separate occassions to pre-order FFXIII-2 Crystal Edition but they refuse to return my enquiries.
The Lone Steven
That is p*ss poor customer service. You never ever confront the customer in the way that Craig the Manager did. I hope Craig gets sacked
My local Game had some excellent staff who more or less knew what they were talking about and didn’t force you to buy a console. :) I remeber spending an hour talking to one of the staff members about games. Twas a shame it got closed down and only Gamestation is left in the high street. Game was a bit of a rippoff though.
UKZ-N3M1515
I dont mind being badgered at, its their job at the end of the day…
Though it is also their job to give quality customer service, Craig sounds like he did a very poor job…
I am in no doubt however, it has been exaggerated to the extreme, and it was more the buyer getting annoyed and angry.
Scythegpd
Interesting thing about this story. When I pre-ordered my Gears3 Epic Edition the Game employee went to great lengths to explain to me that I HAD to keep all documents and if I didn’t I would not only forfeit my deposit but my pre-order as well (notably important due to it eventually being sold out). They made sure I was aware of it and made sure I knew I would lose it without BOTH pieces of paper. Apparently reason being people were faking pre-order slips so they insisted on the original card payment as well. I saw this being done with other people pre-ordering as well.
So would be interesting to see whether this blogger was given the same clarification and if he was trying his luck. Because while I may not agree with the managers reaction I too would probably get pissed off with numptys who can’t follow explicit instructions then think the world owes them a favour. Sorry mate but if (note – if) the blogger knew you needed both pieces of paper and still pitched up with one and still argued the case to the point of calling a manager … well consider me suspicious as to the blogger painting themselves as some innnocent angelic party who was totally hard-done-by and never got beliggerent or argumentative at all …
FawnDoo
Hiya – to be perfectly honest I can’t remember if they did or didn’t tell me to bring along both bits of paper. I have both, but only picked up the big one to take along. Why? I dunno. Brain-fart, forgetfulness, bad luck? I didn’t think the world owed me a favour, just initially challenged that the two were needed. If the manager had kept the heid and reiterated Kenan’s explanation I would have accepted it – in fact when the first “take it or leave it” was deployed I had the £50 in my hand ready to pay for the game. One GAME employee on Twitter *that night* pointed out that I could have reclaimed the £5 anytime up to 28 days after the game release so why that wasn’t pointed out to me I don’t know. My work is close to the shop so I could have nipped up the next day with both bits of paper and none of this would have happened.
Genuinely haven’t painted myself as an innocent party – if I was going to do that I would have skipped over the admission that I was irritated at all. I do get belligerent and argumentative – we all do, none of us are perfect – but I really didn’t here. I was too shocked!
Last thing though, Kenan himself went and got the manager pretty quickly, I didn’t insist upon it or come in with aggro. I think because it was the guy’s first day he just kicked it up the chain quickly.
kengao
It’s so cool!
if you interested, please check this exciting club for fun seekcasual.com
Thank you very much.