Barnes & Noble really ticked us off and what makes the situation worse is their lack of customer service. Even after contacting corporate, we were not assisted so we want to share our experience with you to prevent you from the same frustrating situation.
One of our family members had The Golf Book on their wish list for the holidays. We are tried and true fans of Amazon and we figured we’d just order the book from there. It was $32.72 and free shipping on Prime. Great! But it was out of stock and wouldn’t get here in time for the party. That would have been OK but we figured we’d check Barnes & Noble’s online store to see if they had it in stock.
Success! They had the same book for nearly the same price with free shipping too. But then we remembered that the following day we had an appointment out of town & in the next town over they had a Barnes & Noble store. We noticed that there was a spot on the website that said we could pick the book up in store, which meant it would eliminate waiting for the postman and 1 more gift would be in our hands and crossed off the list. Awesome!
Here is the screen shot from Barnes & Noble:
Following the prompts on the website, we found out the book was in stock at our local store.
We did not want to waste a trip to the store so just to be certain we called the phone number provided to us on the website and explained that we are from out of town and we were going to buy the book online but if they can verify they do have it in stock we will pick it up when we are in the area. They checked and yes, they did have the book. Hooray!
The following day we went to our appointment and then stopped by the Barnes & Noble store. To our disbelief when we went to check out the book was $50. We kindly explained we had found the book at their online site for $33.37. We explained how we had specifically called and explained that we were from out of town and were going to buy this book online but we figured we would pick it up in the store if they had it and they confirmed they did. The clerk said there is nothing he could do, that sometimes prices vary from the online site and the retail store. Really? A little difference could have been acceptable, but $16.63?
We asked if they will price match their website; he answered no.
We asked if they price match Amazon; he answered no.
Then he looked at us with the book in hand and said “do you want it or not?”. Flabbergasted and feeling the pinch of the holiday deadline we went ahead and bought the book but it did not sit well with us. In this day of customer service and endless competition for business as well as bookstore after bookstore closing due to lack of sales the situation seemed unbelievable. We were not happy at all. Yes, we realize we could have left the book in the store and it was our choice to go ahead with the sale, but after traveling 38 miles to get this book we bought it.
The following day we reached out to Barnes & Noble on Facebook and on Twitter. Their responses seemed scripted as if they get this kind of complaint often. They did not feel genuine or interested in our concerns or our future business.
We did go back on the website and found, in tiny tiny print this:
Apparently when we called an explained the entire scenario to the store that first time it is OUR responsibility to confirm the price of the book.
One would think Barnes & Noble would train their employees to educate customers calling in about books they have found on their website (like we had) about price differences. One would think Barnes & Noble would train their employees to confirm the price of a book when they are fielding a phone inquiry. One would also think that Barnes & Noble would train their employees, including those that handle their social media department that the customer is always right and that good customer service goes a long way.
Nope – and that is why we will never buy from Barnes & Noble again.
And they wonder why Amazon is the #1 bookseller?
