England Optical – end of the trilogy

Well, well, well. Someone pinged me today on Gmail and it was none other than ms azuwa! 

She told me that england optical finally gave in and REFUNDED RM300 to her!! Now this is indeed strange, considering how long it has been since the incident. i suppose ms azuwa’s unrelentless pushing sort of help. She did mentioned that perhaps earlier, England Optical didnt want to give the refund bcos they thought she was a student….  even though she was already married with one son!!! 

I am not sure if my blog indeed help ms azuwa’s case in any way as i have not been contacted by anyone from england optical but i sure hope everyone learn a valuable lesson here : THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT! 

 

PS: You may find ms azuwa in facebook = go look for AZUWA AZIZ …she is gal with the hot chick picture…whether she add you guys or not..its not up to me la…..

England Optical Part 2

It was almost impossible to contact the HQ of england optical. all my emails to them bounced and even on their corporate website, the customer feedback + contact us link was dead.

So finally, i contacted Ms Azuwa and she gave me the contact number for the HQ. I called and ended up talking to the PR/Marketing Manager called Mr Krishnan. It was really weird….really. This Mr Krishnan was aware of this incident but DECLINE to confirm it and kept asking me instead to call his branch to sort out the issues!

Seeing how defensive he was about this incident, i asked him if i could at least have his email, official title so i can email him about my blog for him to view. He REFUSES to tell me both and kept telling me that he just joined the company for 1  month, so he cannot do anything!

WHAT THE FUCK?? IF i was the CEO of england optical, i would have fired his arse already!!

the correct way to response to situations like this is

1) Apologise to the customer, regardless of whose mistake it is (the customer is always right!)

2) Inform the customer that you need time to investigate, take down the details of the customer.

3) check with the branch on the issue and become the intermediate to solve the issue. (NOT ASK THE CUSTOMER TO SOLVE THE ISSUE WITH THE BRANCH!)

Anyways, i dont know about you guys but i will be veeeeeeeeery careful if i were to purchase anything from this company in the future.

Anyways, back to Miss Azuwa’s case – i believe she is asking for refund but the branch refuses to do so, instead they are offering her rebates to purchase new lenses. If i was in Miss Azuwa’s shoe, i would understand why she wanted a refund instead. would you want to purchase another pair of lens from the same shop that gave you the wrong prescriptions? Azuwa will bring this case to the consumer tribunal, so i wish her all the best!!

England Optical

I got a visitor request to blog about England Optical, in response to my earlier blog post  “Eyes Wide Shut”. Below is his full story, unedited :

“I have been to the england optical in sek 13, giant shah alam last november 4, 2008 to do eye examination and have a new spectacles for my eyes.  I collected my new order 2 weeks after and wore it early Dec 2008 until 31 January 2009.  I came back to the outlet many times after i can’t see properly because the image that i saw its not stabled and felt not comfortable, headache with my new spectacles.

1st visit, they said its normal case if u feel not comfortable because of new spectacles.

2nd visit, i told them whether something wrong with my right eye or the spectacles because i really felt not comfortable and really headache until i went to medical centre to see specialist what went wrong with head on the right hand side and because of that i got to on Medical leave and can’t work.  The girl noticed that my eye looks so tired and red in color.  She said kindly leave your contact no because their specialist was not in and will call me back for an appointment but no calls.

3rd visit, the same thing was happened again.

On the 31 January 2009 i went to Home & Work Optometriy Care to get 2nd opinion and the proper eye test since the England Optical that i went could not solve my problem.  After i had almost 3 hours for eye test, i was shocked because my result was very different with what i had in England Optical.

Can u imagine..how could england optical gave result for my right eye for SPH-4.75 and CYL-0.50 and left eye SPH-5.25 and CYL0.50 which is far different with my recent eye test which is SPH-2.00 and CYL-4.50. And for left eye is SPH5.75 and CYL-0.25.  Then i came back to Giant sek 13 shah alam to ask them because i was not satisfied what they have been done to me.  They did not checked my eyes properly and because their careles mistakes i was sufferred and my eyes condition was unstabled because i was forcing my eyes wore that stupid spectacles and listened to that stupid girl who do not even bother every time i came and gave me all idiot consultation.  And because of them, i have to get new lens which is cost for RM575.  Who wants to pay for the cost?”

it does seems like he has a case and he even posted his receipt as a proof.( i will not post the receipt here as the file is 10mb in size!)

I will send an email to england optical group for them to confirm this incident and what is their plan, if any, to help this poor fella.

PS: I do find their website annoying…. the customer feedback link is dead and they dont list down their branches numbers or locations…hardly a proper website…..

Eyes wide shut

At what point does customer service begins and ends to you? Does it begin during your purchase of a certain goods/services or even before you decide to buy? Or is customer service just after sales service to you?

Last week i went to shop for contact lenses with my wife at 1utama. We randomly walked into any optical shops we could find as we didn’t have much time to spare with baby in tow. We came across this shop called Optique Avenue by Paris Miki and before we enter, my wife said ” Please ask if they charge for an eye test? I need to test before buying a new pair of contact lens”. I was shocked as to why my wife asked this puzzling question- Don’t all optical shops provide FREE eye tests? So we went in and i asked the sales ladies if they have contact lens and if they charge for eye tests.

NO FREE eye test here. shoo shoo....

The sales lady replied, “Yes sir, its RM3.00 (My wife insists that she heard it as RM30) but its FREE if you buy contact lens from us. Flabbergasted, i asked them “What if after the test and you dont have the particular lens with the right power?”

She replied “Oh, then we will order for you!” .

Hmn…..you probably guessed it = i told my wife that we can get better service (a.k.a. FREE EYE TEST) from other optical shops. We then came across England Optical in the old wing of 1utama and true enough, the staffs there were friendly and more than happy to give us the free eye test.

england optical. Free eye tests and friendly service.pity about their prices though...

Regardless of whether we are buying anything from them! After a quick 5 min eye test, we were about to buy from them but the prices were a bit steep, so too bad we decided to try another shop.

The last shop that we went to was probably the best optical shop in 1utama. its a very small scale “mom and pop” style shop and the staffs & tauke were very friendly. They didnt charge for eye test and they actually took around 15min to do a proper eye tests and give recommendation on what lens power my wife should use. Also the price of the lenses there were the cheapest out of 4 shops we went to in all of 1utama.

MY EYE shop in 1utama. The best optical shop in 1utama in terms of service and price. my personal guarantee man....

I had a chance to speak with the tauke (at least i think HE is the tauke) and i asked him

Q : why some shops in 1u CHARGE for eye test?

A: “its probably bcos they had too many customers going for eye tests and not buying.”

Q:  “But wait, dont all optical shops provide free eye tests anyways? so whats the big deal ?”

A : Well, its a malaysian practice. In spore, you actually have to pay S$20, regardless or whether you buy anything or not!”

Oh yeah, before we left, we also took pics of the tauke with my son for my other blog “PROJECT 1000″ (Click to visit and also some customers of his at the shops.

MY EYE Optical shop tauke with my son

SO there you have it. now coming back to the original question on the start of this post, i feel that customer service begins even before a customer transacts with any businesses. I feel especially today, in this globalized, web 2.0 and media centric market, one good customer service stories will really make or break a business reputation.

What are your thoughts? leave me a comment!