WARNING! WARNING!! WARNING!!!
This is another of my illicit attempts at driving Dealdey related traffic to my blog. I didn't expect my rant about bad customer experience last year to go so high in search engine rankings. Alas (only for Dealdey though), it did. On the bright side, this one is on the opposite side of the goodwill continuum, as my evil rant was.
Enjoy...
Dealdey recently moved their pick-up shop from inside Adeniran Ogunsaya Shopping mall (AOS) a.k.a Shoprite, Surulere to some shop opposite Zenith bank on the same Adeniran Ogunsanya street. I was at the new shop for the first time last Saturday (yesterday) to pick-up my last two orders.
It didn't take much trouble to locate the shop, as it had thoughtfully been described - on Dealdey's website - as being directly opposite Zenith bank. As it turns out, the description was spot on. The shop happens to be just a few yards away from AOS.
Right at the top of the front door of the new shop was a small placard that read Dealdey. Through the transparent glass doors, I could see people moving about inside. I was glad the shop was open, 'cos I'd shortly earlier tried to confirm this from their customer service number: 01-4609950. Unfortunately, all I managed to achieve on that call was hear how important my call is to Dealdey but their agents are currently all engaged. For two minutes, my hard-earned money burned away on the line. Being the shrewd Ijebu man from Osun that I am, I promptly dropped the call at the two minute mark. Adeniran Ogunsanya is not that far from my place, so I thought; well, it's worth the risk.
Stepping into the shop, sale items were displayed around the store. My first impression was that Dealdey was squatting with a boutique. I exchanged pleasantries with the first young lady I encountered and told her I was here for Dealdey. She welcomed me and told me I was in the right place. Usual proceedings began swiftly. She took down my order numbers and took them to an inner room for processing.
As soon as she resurfaced, she went on to tell me how the new pick-up shop doubles as Dealdey's offline store (they probably need a conspicuous poster, so they don't have to explain this manually every time to first time visitors). It was really surprising now; surprising first, then impressive when I pondered it. I think the idea is truly innovative; the idea to enable online customers to buy deals on the spot when they come in to redeem their coupons. "Space efficiency at its heights", that's how I would describe it in a phrase.
So impressed was I, that it was not so hard for the cheerful saleswoman who attended to my pick-up to coax me into buying a shirt whose sleeve was rather too short for my "Gissele-Bundchen leg-ish" (read, unbelievably lenghty) hand. She accompanied me to a compact dressing room, where I examined the fit of the long-sleeved Polo shirt. The mirror seemed to support her (and her colleague's) proclamations of how good the shirt looked on me. The only con was the sleeve, which was a little too short (not unexpected). This, she was able to help me excuse away by suggesting that I could always roll it up. I acquiesced. I smiled, she smiled. I think it was a good bargain though: 2000 naira for an okay long-sleeved shirt; not bad.
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| The 2000 Naira Shirt. |
While I was waiting for my order, PHCN (or is it IKEDC? mschew) struck i.e. utility electric supply was lost. Their internet supply was lost immediately, and they could not access the online lookup portal. For some reason, it took rather long for them to get the generator supply up. During the 'dark' period, they asked each waiting client for the dates when their orders were placed. I assume they stash up orders by date ordered in their store room. Another customer, a dapper looking lady, sporting beautiful dreadlocks, had (on learning that internet was unavailable 'cos of power failure) advised them to get their internet hooked up to a UPS.
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| Failed Pickup Deladey |
Just to spice up the relatively positive narrative with some negative (why, because the world is not a perfect place), I shall end this with the revelation that I was only able to pick up one out of two due items. The failed pick-up (which in all honesty, they had not informed me to come pick-up) has its coupon due for expiration next Wednesday. The reason for the failure was that the associated deal is a pre-order and the merchant is yet to supply. Meanwhile, the information on the deal states that:
"Item will be available for delivery and pick up from December 31, 2014 (preorder)"I'll excuse the failure of promise, because I am a particularly empathetic individual. After all, no one is perfect. If there's anyone to know about not meeting up to promises, it should be me; what with Monday after Monday at work of not meeting up on set goals for the past week. Everyone deserves to be cut some slack.
Ride on Dealdey, ride on. I'm feeling the offline store + pick-up shop combination concept.
