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> Huynh claims Walmart ... failed to process customer returns I've had this exact experience. A car seat I returned was "lost" when I shipped it back. It took

> Huynh claims Walmart ... failed to process customer returns I've had this exact experience. A car seat I returned was "lost" when I shipped it back. It took me 6 months to get a refund, and it was only because I pinged an exec there and he facilitated the refund. Front line phone customer support was useless in a Kafka-esque manner. I didn't think it was nefarious, but as much as I want competition for Amazon, the thought of buying from Walmart makes me feel like it's going to be a painful ordeal.

deleted 9y ago
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sahil-kang 9y ago
What do you mean by “Kafka-esque” in this context?
- ranie93 9y ago
  Probably this: "The term "Kafkaesque" is used to describe concepts and situations reminiscent of his work, particularly Der Process (The Trial) and "Die Verwandlung" (The Metamorphosis). Examples include instances in which bureaucracies overpower people, often in a surreal, nightmarish milieu which evokes feelings of senselessness, disorientation, and helplessness." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka#"Kafkaesque" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka#"Kafkaesque"
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - pdkl95 9y ago
    One of The Onion's best skits is a about a very "Kafkaesque" business. > Business Week rated Franz Kafka International among the worst airports in terms of customer service, calling the employees completely indifferent to traveler's needs. "If there is as problem, fill out complaint form and place it in an envelope addressed to the name of the hospital in which you were born." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEyFH-a-XoQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEyFH-a-XoQ
  - sahil-kang 9y ago
    I had immediately thought of the Apache Kafka project, but this makes much more sense. Thanks for the new reading material too :)
    - bonesss 9y ago
      I figured that "Apache Kafka-esque" was pretty appropriate here... Walmart is high volume, distributed, and its workers require a Zookeeper <rimshot>.
- georgemcbay 9y ago
  Ever try to talk to a human at Google when you need support for anything other than AdSense? That would be a good encapsulation.
  - IncRnd 9y ago
    I've tried one and only one time to speak to someone at Google (not for adsense). At that time I was trying to recover an old email account that had been unused for awhile. I was perfectly ready to just create a new account but still wanted to try to get at an email that I thought might be inside this account. I was 100% ready to smack into a brick wall of non-responsiveness after I sent an email from a different account to their tech support. What actually happened was a live person called me back from Google and gave me access to the old account on the spot - despite my not remembering much about the account itself (date I opened it, name I registered it under, etc). That resolution was practically out of the twilight zone...
- jyrkesh 9y ago
  This Asterix cartoon is excellent at demonstrating the horrors of a Kafka-esque bureaucracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtEkUmYecnk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtEkUmYecnk
- Sangermaine 9y ago
  Meat-touching.
anonacct37 9y ago
I work for walmart ecommerce. There are some legitimate reasons for their issues. I could talk about them in depth (turns out when you crush the competition with the world's best logistics technology you end up with a whole bunch of systems from the 70s/80s that are hard to update). Walmart was literally using the internet before most companies even knew it was a thing, and unfortunately their internal network reflects that. Another example is inventory management and sales reporting. When these systems were built there was nothing like them in the world to centrally manage inventory and availability and create feedback loops. But in 2018 going to the back office to get a 100 page printout generated by a mainframe once a day hurts more than it helps. It's like we climbed mount everest and got farther than anyone before us before building a camp, and now we're kind of stuck in it and by the way people have found even better routes since then. But anyways, customers don't care. It's not their problem. I've had orders cancelled for no real reason so I just give up and buy it on amazon. I've had search so bad I can't even find what I'm looking for so I just give up and buy it on amazon. And I'm somewhat incentivized to want to think the shopping experience is good.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- busyant 9y ago
  Well, since you're here... In mid-November, I bought a Christmas gift for my son (a drone) on-line through Wal-mart. The text on the Wal-mart web-page urged me to purchase now (to guarantee on-time delivery). The shipment of the drone was fulfilled by a 3rd party. I got the drone in early December, wrapped it and my son opened it on Xmas day. Drone didn't work. Out. of. the. box. I asked for a refund, and Wal-mart customer service told me to pound sand b/c the product came from a 3rd party that had a 30-day return policy (no exceptions). I know I'm a drop in the bucket, and I may not always be able to avoid Wal-mart, but I told them I would do my level best to shop elsewhere.
  - ThrustVectoring 9y ago
    That's when you contact your bank and issue a chargeback.
username223 9y ago
> Front line phone customer support was useless in a Kafka-esque manner. Isn't that just how online retail works these days? Once you find your way through the menu tree, you get to talk to a person who sort of speaks your language, over a bad connection that will probably cut out in a minute or two, and who is paid to deflect. If it matters, you'll try to cause a Twitter storm. Otherwise you'll give up.
- reaperducer 9y ago
  Yes. And Amazon isn't that much better. Last night it took me a full 10 minutes to get someone at Amazon on the horn. And you can't call Amazon. You can only request that they call you.
  - wetha 9y ago
    “You can only request that they call you.” Sounds like exactly why Amazon is much better. They don’t put you on hold, and there’s no IVR menu to suffer through.
    - kaybe 9y ago
      The best telephone systems I've been on did two things: 1. Tell you the estimated waiting time so you can decide for yourself if it is worth it, 2. and offer to leave a message to call you back at a time you want instead of waiting.
  - JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
    The live chat is the nirvana you seek. And that goes for pretty much any customer support anywhere in my opinion.
- astura 9y ago
  I called chewy.com because I forgot to apply a coupon code on an order that I placed 30 seconds before. They answered the phone, spoke English well, and had no problem applying the coupon code to an existing order for me. Quite nice.
ianstallings 9y ago
This doesn't surprise me at all. The last time I was actually in a Wal Mart I had an employee yell right at me when I asked to get by their carts in the way. I complained to their corporate, expecting at least a call back. I got nothing. No phone call, no emails, nothing. They really do not care apparently. So I refuse to spend any $ there ever again. Sam Walton once said "There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else" But does anyone really think that they still follow this advice? Wal Mart has a well deserved terrible reputation.
- adventured 9y ago
  Ultimately Amazon will eat them if they don't compete on customer service. Amazon is still being run by their Sam Walton, with Bezos obviously being obsessive about trying to make customers happy (although I wonder more recently if he isn't likely to lose focus, spreading himself & Amazon way too thin). That's of course why even huge companies tend to die and or fade given time, it's nearly impossible to maintain the founder fanaticism that got the business to the top of the mountain in the first place.
- __jal 9y ago
  Very similar experience. I only ever end up in one when visiting relatives. I'd be surly if I worked there too, and totally understand it. Still makes for a miserable place to go. And on a purely visceral level, what gets me is that the stores all stink. Seriously don't understand it - I'm guessing it is some cleaning product - but jesus, they all smell terrible.
empath75 9y ago
I ordered a mattress from walmart and got a dining set. It was more expensive than the mattress I ordered, and we needed one anyway, so I kept it.
- reaperducer 9y ago
  Last year my wife ordered two chairs. A week after they were delivered she got an e-mail saying they were lost and replacements would be sent. I don't know if that's a Wal-Mart problem or the third party or the shipper, but now we have four chairs.
  - narrowingorbits 9y ago
    A guy in my office ordered a 60-inch LCD TV. They delivered. Two weeks later another arrived. Customer service wouldn't acknowledge the first, so now he has two.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      That's a situation where I feel like saying something could only make things worse.
    - kjs3 9y ago
      I occasionally order something from Amazon, get billed for one, and two show up in the box. Like whomever did the picking in the warehouse got sloppy or something. Unfortunately, only for small, cheap items...no TVs yet. Fingers crossed.
- zaroth 9y ago
  "Walmart's new AI delights customers with this one weird trick."
- stordoff 9y ago
  I once ordered a notebook from Amazon and ended up getting a phone case (they sent a replacement). Bizarrely, the original notebook arrived the following week, so I ended up with two notebooks and a phone case.
kolpa 9y ago
Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
- ineedasername 9y ago
  And sufficiently egregious incompetence is so glaring & obvious that failure to redress its harms is also indistinguishable from malicious neglect
tantalor 9y ago
I had the opposite experience... wanted to return an item, they said "keep it" and refunded the money instead.
stordoff 9y ago
I had similar with Amazon - returned item was lost, and I was told that I would receive the return when they get the item back. Difference being that it only took one more email, saying that you have proof of postage/tracking number, to get a return and a £10 gift card as an apology. Not sure why that was was different to begin with though - most returns they process as soon as the item is shipped (i.e. before they get it back).

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

sahil-kang 9y ago

What do you mean by “Kafka-esque” in this context?

ranie93 9y ago
Probably this: "The term "Kafkaesque" is used to describe concepts and situations reminiscent of his work, particularly Der Process (The Trial) and "Die Verwandlung" (The Metamorphosis). Examples include instances in which bureaucracies overpower people, often in a surreal, nightmarish milieu which evokes feelings of senselessness, disorientation, and helplessness." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka#"Kafkaesque" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka#"Kafkaesque"
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- pdkl95 9y ago
  One of The Onion's best skits is a about a very "Kafkaesque" business. > Business Week rated Franz Kafka International among the worst airports in terms of customer service, calling the employees completely indifferent to traveler's needs. "If there is as problem, fill out complaint form and place it in an envelope addressed to the name of the hospital in which you were born." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEyFH-a-XoQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEyFH-a-XoQ
- sahil-kang 9y ago
  I had immediately thought of the Apache Kafka project, but this makes much more sense. Thanks for the new reading material too :)
  - bonesss 9y ago
    I figured that "Apache Kafka-esque" was pretty appropriate here... Walmart is high volume, distributed, and its workers require a Zookeeper <rimshot>.
georgemcbay 9y ago
Ever try to talk to a human at Google when you need support for anything other than AdSense? That would be a good encapsulation.
- IncRnd 9y ago
  I've tried one and only one time to speak to someone at Google (not for adsense). At that time I was trying to recover an old email account that had been unused for awhile. I was perfectly ready to just create a new account but still wanted to try to get at an email that I thought might be inside this account. I was 100% ready to smack into a brick wall of non-responsiveness after I sent an email from a different account to their tech support. What actually happened was a live person called me back from Google and gave me access to the old account on the spot - despite my not remembering much about the account itself (date I opened it, name I registered it under, etc). That resolution was practically out of the twilight zone...
jyrkesh 9y ago
This Asterix cartoon is excellent at demonstrating the horrors of a Kafka-esque bureaucracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtEkUmYecnk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtEkUmYecnk
Sangermaine 9y ago
Meat-touching.

anonacct37 9y ago

I work for walmart ecommerce. There are some legitimate reasons for their issues. I could talk about them in depth (turns out when you crush the competition with the world's best logistics technology you end up with a whole bunch of systems from the 70s/80s that are hard to update). Walmart was literally using the internet before most companies even knew it was a thing, and unfortunately their internal network reflects that. Another example is inventory management and sales reporting. When these systems were built there was nothing like them in the world to centrally manage inventory and availability and create feedback loops. But in 2018 going to the back office to get a 100 page printout generated by a mainframe once a day hurts more than it helps. It's like we climbed mount everest and got farther than anyone before us before building a camp, and now we're kind of stuck in it and by the way people have found even better routes since then. But anyways, customers don't care. It's not their problem. I've had orders cancelled for no real reason so I just give up and buy it on amazon. I've had search so bad I can't even find what I'm looking for so I just give up and buy it on amazon. And I'm somewhat incentivized to want to think the shopping experience is good.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
busyant 9y ago
Well, since you're here... In mid-November, I bought a Christmas gift for my son (a drone) on-line through Wal-mart. The text on the Wal-mart web-page urged me to purchase now (to guarantee on-time delivery). The shipment of the drone was fulfilled by a 3rd party. I got the drone in early December, wrapped it and my son opened it on Xmas day. Drone didn't work. Out. of. the. box. I asked for a refund, and Wal-mart customer service told me to pound sand b/c the product came from a 3rd party that had a 30-day return policy (no exceptions). I know I'm a drop in the bucket, and I may not always be able to avoid Wal-mart, but I told them I would do my level best to shop elsewhere.
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  That's when you contact your bank and issue a chargeback.

username223 9y ago

> Front line phone customer support was useless in a Kafka-esque manner. Isn't that just how online retail works these days? Once you find your way through the menu tree, you get to talk to a person who sort of speaks your language, over a bad connection that will probably cut out in a minute or two, and who is paid to deflect. If it matters, you'll try to cause a Twitter storm. Otherwise you'll give up.

reaperducer 9y ago
Yes. And Amazon isn't that much better. Last night it took me a full 10 minutes to get someone at Amazon on the horn. And you can't call Amazon. You can only request that they call you.
- wetha 9y ago
  “You can only request that they call you.” Sounds like exactly why Amazon is much better. They don’t put you on hold, and there’s no IVR menu to suffer through.
  - kaybe 9y ago
    The best telephone systems I've been on did two things: 1. Tell you the estimated waiting time so you can decide for yourself if it is worth it, 2. and offer to leave a message to call you back at a time you want instead of waiting.
- JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
  The live chat is the nirvana you seek. And that goes for pretty much any customer support anywhere in my opinion.
astura 9y ago
I called chewy.com because I forgot to apply a coupon code on an order that I placed 30 seconds before. They answered the phone, spoke English well, and had no problem applying the coupon code to an existing order for me. Quite nice.

ianstallings 9y ago

This doesn't surprise me at all. The last time I was actually in a Wal Mart I had an employee yell right at me when I asked to get by their carts in the way. I complained to their corporate, expecting at least a call back. I got nothing. No phone call, no emails, nothing. They really do not care apparently. So I refuse to spend any $ there ever again. Sam Walton once said "There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else" But does anyone really think that they still follow this advice? Wal Mart has a well deserved terrible reputation.

adventured 9y ago
Ultimately Amazon will eat them if they don't compete on customer service. Amazon is still being run by their Sam Walton, with Bezos obviously being obsessive about trying to make customers happy (although I wonder more recently if he isn't likely to lose focus, spreading himself & Amazon way too thin). That's of course why even huge companies tend to die and or fade given time, it's nearly impossible to maintain the founder fanaticism that got the business to the top of the mountain in the first place.
__jal 9y ago
Very similar experience. I only ever end up in one when visiting relatives. I'd be surly if I worked there too, and totally understand it. Still makes for a miserable place to go. And on a purely visceral level, what gets me is that the stores all stink. Seriously don't understand it - I'm guessing it is some cleaning product - but jesus, they all smell terrible.

empath75 9y ago

I ordered a mattress from walmart and got a dining set. It was more expensive than the mattress I ordered, and we needed one anyway, so I kept it.

reaperducer 9y ago
Last year my wife ordered two chairs. A week after they were delivered she got an e-mail saying they were lost and replacements would be sent. I don't know if that's a Wal-Mart problem or the third party or the shipper, but now we have four chairs.
- narrowingorbits 9y ago
  A guy in my office ordered a 60-inch LCD TV. They delivered. Two weeks later another arrived. Customer service wouldn't acknowledge the first, so now he has two.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    That's a situation where I feel like saying something could only make things worse.
  - kjs3 9y ago
    I occasionally order something from Amazon, get billed for one, and two show up in the box. Like whomever did the picking in the warehouse got sloppy or something. Unfortunately, only for small, cheap items...no TVs yet. Fingers crossed.
zaroth 9y ago
"Walmart's new AI delights customers with this one weird trick."
stordoff 9y ago
I once ordered a notebook from Amazon and ended up getting a phone case (they sent a replacement). Bizarrely, the original notebook arrived the following week, so I ended up with two notebooks and a phone case.

kolpa 9y ago

Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

ineedasername 9y ago
And sufficiently egregious incompetence is so glaring & obvious that failure to redress its harms is also indistinguishable from malicious neglect

tantalor 9y ago

I had the opposite experience... wanted to return an item, they said "keep it" and refunded the money instead.

stordoff 9y ago

I had similar with Amazon - returned item was lost, and I was told that I would receive the return when they get the item back. Difference being that it only took one more email, saying that you have proof of postage/tracking number, to get a return and a £10 gift card as an apology. Not sure why that was was different to begin with though - most returns they process as soon as the item is shipped (i.e. before they get it back).