So where were we…
After being offered the chance to exchange the dud batteries at a cost of £10.99 the man thought. The company has offered him some options to resolve the dead battery saga, they are:
1 – A £10 online voucher. The shop @ which the voucher is valid doesn’t sell the required batteries
2 – A telephone number he can call and pay £10.99 to replace something that never worked in the first place
3 – Return the whole phone to the company for an exchange. This would leave the man with no phone for the duration of the exchange
Then the man had an idea. He remembered that he worked for the company which owned the shop. The man wrote once more to the online shop summarising the three options. He asked the shop to check and make sure these were indeed the three and only options available (he reminded the shop that all he wanted were two AAA rechargeable batteries – in case you or anyone else had forgotten by now). He said that once they had checked, he would let his colleagues in the company know what was going on and see if he could obtain a satisfactory resolution that way, albeit reluctantly.
The shop replied – yes the man’s summary of the options was correct.
In the end, and only after the man spoke to his colleagues and asked for them to help, the man was sent a replacement phone (for some still inexplicable reason the whole thing had to be sent to him). He removed the batteries, swapped them over into his phone and lo – the handset now worked. The shop did offer to collect the phone but the man couldn’t bear to wait around so he took the second phone to the post office and returned it. He enjoyed an ice cream on the way back home.
The original cost of the product was around £100. If you remember, the man felt good about his purchase at the time. I wonder how much cost and time and hassle have been expended to get a £100 item working? I wonder how the man feels now?
