Bye Bye, BBB

I’ve seen many stores go out of business over the years. I remember when Foley’s closed. My parents purchased many of my piano competition dresses from Foley’s back in the day. My in-laws bought two sets of dining tables and chairs during their closing sale. They gave us one table when we got married and it’s the table we eat off daily. I remember watching Super 1 Foods close as a child. It became Rainbow Foods for a while and then disappeared altogether. I remember when Service Merchandise disappeared. 

The red trim.

In the last 10 years, I remember watching Sears close. My daughter has actually been to a Sears before although she will never remember. I remember going to their store closing sale, pushing her in her stroller when she was less than a year old. We made the mistake of leaving the house without a diaper or wipes - it was one or both. And she happened to have a blow out. We laid a blanket under her bottom in the car seat and then strapped her in to go home and change. I’ve even commemorated this event in one of her baby photo albums. 

Another store is closing now. I’ve loved Bed Bath and Beyond since I was a child. My aunt was the person who introduced this store to me and she knew it was one of my favorites. When I was in high school, we visited my aunt and she took my cousins and my brother and me out shopping. She was going to Bed Bath and Beyond and the boys were going to Target next door to look at electronics and video games. She asked me if I wanted to go with her or the boys. Guess where I chose to go? 

Target. 

Now as an adult and a female, Target sounds very appealing to go wander for any amount of time. However, I didn’t have that appeal as a teenager. Target felt like a grocery store to me. (Yes, I distinguish the difference now, but this was nearly two decades ago.) So why didn’t I go with my aunt? 

I wanted to call a boy and I couldn’t do that next to my aunt. I could easily run away from my cousins and brother, and the truth was, they didn’t care. Alas, it ended up being a terrible decision because I had neither a pleasant phone conversation nor an enjoyable time with the boys. I recounted this whole experience in my first book, and as much as I cringe at my own memories, I am thankful some of them have been written down or else they would be lost in the abyss of history that is my past. 

When we got married, we registered at Bed Bath and Beyond. They were the quintessential wedding registry. We went in store and used the little scanner guns going around the store scanning items. We received a number of gift cards from friends and family which we’ve had no problems using in the last nine years. I hoarded the coupons every time they came in the mail. For the longest time, they let you use expired coupons. The most valuable ones were $5 off a $15 purchase or $10 off a $30 purchase. In my email, I even received coupons that were $20 off $75. There were coupons for all types of purchases, big or small. It was just playing the game of which coupon I had for which purchase I wanted to make. 

Buy Buy Baby was their sister company. I never stepped foot in one until I was pregnant with my first child. Did you guess it? I was hooked. It became my favorite store to walk in as a new parent to buy the random miscellaneous things I thought I needed to survive this new stage of life I was in. They also accepted Bed Bath and Beyond coupons for a while so I could save both and use them interchangeably at the stores. I’ll never forget the giant blown up pictures of babies they put up in their store foyer which were visible from the parking lot. My daughter aptly knew that store as the “baby store” because of those images. 

It definitely feels like the end of an era for me. I had an entire envelope of coupons saved up which I tossed out recently when they stopped accepting coupons. There will never be any more blue and white flyers arriving in my mailbox with a giant 20% on one side. My email inbox will be slightly cleaner due to less subscription emails coming through. Although the store hasn’t officially closed yet, I won’t be stepping foot in one anymore. I went last week for the last time when they bumped up their sale to 60-80% off everything. Most of the store was already cleared out. Only very miscellaneous type items are left in the sizes/styles that are least preferable. 

Bye Bye, BBB.

The Business Problem

We had someone out on a Friday to come give us a quote for new sprinklers. After over seven years of living in this house, we've finally decided we probably need automatic sprinklers to water our grass, especially with the kind of summer we've had this year. I'm not going to get into that now as that's not what I wanted to share today. 

He came out Friday afternoon, walked around our yard, answered our questions, and told us the following before leaving:

- he was going to get a quote to us that weekend

- he would send a text message when he sent the quote in case something happened

So he left and I felt very encouraged that I wouldn't have to create my own "watering zones" for hours every summer by moving the hose. 

We were out of town that weekend but I kept checking my email periodically to see if the quote had come through. It didn't. On Monday afternoon, I still hadn't received anything in my email from him so I texted him saying I hadn't received the test and included my email in the text to make sure he was sending it to the proper one. Never got a response to my text message. 

On Tuesday, I called the office number in the morning. They said they saw the quote in the system but wasn't sure it was ready so they were going to reach out to him to ask if it was done and then have it sent. Wednesday and Thursday I didn't do anything. Didn't get the quote.

Friday rolls around and I still haven't received it. I called the office again at 4:30 pm. A different person at the office answers from Tuesday morning and it is then that she confirms the email with me which is incorrect in their system. I correct it for her and she says she will send it. At 4:45 I haven't gotten the quote yet so I call back. I got voicemail a few times, so I called three times until someone picked up the phone. She told me she hadn't gotten time to send it yet but she would. I again confirmed she had the correct email in the system, hung up, and waited.

Now I want to make it clear that although I "bombarded" the office with calls on Friday afternoon, I was very polite and kind, no cursing, no name calling every time on the phone. We'll get to this again later.

Friday evening around 9:30 pm, I finally get the quote in my email. We look it over. It's a competitive quote. We had an idea from the start that this company was going to be competitive and wanted to sign with them. But getting the actual quote in my email was a nightmare.

Saturday at noon, I received a text message from him saying the quote was resent (resent??) and I should have received it. I responded saying I did receive it and would be in touch with him when we made a decision. 

Wow.

Are you tired from reading that? Let's break it down now. 

When he originally came out to give us the quote, he told us two things that I specifically outlined. He failed to do both. I got neither a quote that weekend nor a message saying he sent it. Later when the quote was actually sent, he told me it was "resent" which means it was sent it a first time. Why didn't I get a confirmation text that time? After all, he did originally say he would send it. Also, I purposely confirmed my email in the text message to him when I sent it on Monday. There shouldn't have been any kind of email mistake between Tuesday to Friday because he had the email on his phone in a text message by Monday. Most importantly, I never got an apology when clearly the business dropped the ball on something. I can't stand it when people don't own up to their mistakes. Is it hard? Absolutely. Should you? Yes. Especially if you want to be a business owner.

Here's the flip side of the situation. People are manipulative. People are rude. People are mean. These people have ruined the concept of "The customer is always right." I'm positive at some point in business, he was trying to be nice and it ended up biting him in the butt. Why am I positive this has happened? Because I run a business and it has happened to me and people are still people. And the problem with today's progressiveness is that I would be seen as the antagonist. I would be seen as the crazy lady who "bombarded" an office with calls on a Friday afternoon so close to business close. 

But if you knew the whole story, you'd understand that they dropped the ball first. He did not keep his word in doing what he said he would do. And I gave him an entire week. And it still took me calling the offie on the next Friday afternoon before closing to make sure I got the quote.