Planet Client | Canon Store UK firing blanks

Planet Client Home | Sticky Clients | zyzzyva | About

By Sean Ashcroft
IS THERE a point at which organizations become too large – too stretched, dislocated and impersonal – to exercise quality control at every stage of the customer journey?

My recent dealings with the UK Canon Store would suggest there is. While Canon Inc, undeniably makes some of the best consumer technology ever devised, what good is this if Canon’s regional distribution arms are unable to deliver them to its customers?

My Canon Store experience began with the mild thrill that comes with ordering cutting edge tackle – a PowerShot digital camera and an iSensys inkjet printer.

I waited three and-a-half weeks for the screech of courier tyres outside my home, before grumpily chasing up the missing order.

“They’re in a warehouse in Ireland,” I was told.

“But I don’t have an extension lead that stretches that far,” I replied.

“They’re in a warehouse in Ireland,” the heavily accented voice repeated.

“For how much longer?”

“They’re in a warehouse in Ireland,”

I opted to cancel the order, on a point of principle (the principle being that it’s a recession, and the customer should not so much be king, as a demagogue, at whose feet companies like Canon ought to scrape and bow in worshipful supplication).

Besides, if Amazon can deliver Canon products within a week, shouldn’t Canon be seeking to do so even quicker?

I fired off a complaint to Canon’s customer service people, and received this reply from a Mary Morgan, who appears to have no job title other than ‘customer service’:

“Unfortunately some orders are put on backorder according to availability at the warehouse. If an item is out of stock, we are unable to fulfil orders until more stock is received from the manufacturing warehouse.”

In other words, “They’re in a warehouse in Ireland,”

Having cancelled my order, I thought this was the end of it, until yesterday I received notification from Canon Store that my items were still in the same warehouse in Ireland, and that my card would be charged upon their dispatch.

A hour ago I challenged Mary Morgan by email to ‘own and resolve’ my problem, and allow me to at least end this sorry tale on a brighter note for Canon.

I received an automated reply from Canon Store UK, but not from Mary Morgan. Its people, it seems, may not even be virtually real.

I shall keep you posted on whether Ms Morgan or anyone else from Canon Store takes me up on this challenge.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the supreme irony in all this is I needed the camera and printer urgently for backgrounding work on a copywriting assignment I was working on for… Canon Europe.