Eric's Letter to CompUSA

For information about CompUSA, see Wikipedia.

Before sharing my letter with you, I will share the best response I received to it. John Collums' story is just below, and my letter follows it.

John Collums' Story

One day, I was looking through the classified ads and noticed a CompUSA ad. It was a small, four-line ad about their need for a Retail Manager with a phone number listed at the bottom. I thought to myself, "Here is my opportunity to get to the 'real' management's ear and tell them why their store is never busy." I called the number in the ad and recorded this message: "Hi, I wanted to tell you that your sales people lack the training and consideration necessary to be successful in the computer business. I know that I can turn your business around by training any existing staff that wants to learn and by firing those that don't. If you are prepared to make more profit and have fewer customer-service issues in your store, please call me. I look forward to hearing from you." I left my name and number. Less than an hour later, I received a call from the General Manager of the store. She said that she had never had any applicant-hopeful that had been so terse and almost rude. My reply was simple, "I'm sorry ma'am. This is the way that your employees have treated both myself and many customers that I have seen while in your store. I feel that, by educating your staff, I can turn your customer turnover into customer retention."

After a formal interview with her and then another interview with regional managers, I was hired! I came in to the store with an open mind and sat down many of the employees that had been rude to me in previous encounters. The last question I asked in my interview of each person was: "Do you remember being rude to a customer within the last month?" No surprise—two-thirds of the employees could not recall a conflict with a customer. Unfortunately for them, I remembered many times... the customer they treated rudely was me. Many of those employees have moved on to more exciting career endeavors including: toilet scrubbing, flipping hamburgers, and the ever popular garbage dump attendant.

The moral of this story is: Why should we allow our complaints to be handled by the people causing the problem when we can take their jobs!

I sincerely hope that your shopping experiences have become less annoying at CompUSA. In the store that I am in charge of, I have many customers that have started to come back in after many years of avoiding us. I hope that we will someday regain your business as well!

Eric Postpischil's Letter

James F. Halpin, President
CompUSA, Incorporated
14951 N. Dallas Parkway
Dallas, TX 75240

Dear Mr. Halpin:

As you know, bag checkers at your stores intercept exiting customers to search their bags for contraband and to punch holes in their receipts. Since turnabout is fair play, I punched a hole in your receipt when signing my charge slip today.

When your clerk saw me moving my paper punch toward the charge slip I was holding, she attempted to grab the slip away from me. You really ought to train these people better; assaulting a customer is rarely an effective business practice.

Nevertheless, I retained possession of the slip and successfully pierced a quarter-inch circle from it. Regrettably, this caused your clerk to become distressed and flustered. She had to call a manager for assistance. Fortunately, the manager was slightly more skilled; she dismissed the hole and instructed the clerk to proceed. However, your manager failed to greet me. In fact, she completely ignored me. Again, you ought to train these people better; every employee should know the customer is their livelihood.

Because signs in your stores informed me that your bag checkers punched holes in our receipts for our protection, I had a theory that CompUSA receipts carried some dangerous pathogen which was effectively neutralized by punching holes in them. Under this theory, we would expect I was doing the clerk a favor by punching a hole in the charge slip. Her reaction seems to disprove the theory.

Now your clerk knows how customers feel when your bag checkers assault them with a hole puncher. Unfortunately, your clerk has little power. It is really you who should acquire this knowledge. I suggest you visit a few stores, punch holes in the receipts as I did until you find a few clerks that are distressed by it, and then question them about their feelings. Maybe then you will have some idea of what you are doing to your customers.

In case you have not gotten the point yet, let me state it simply. Intercepting customers after a transaction is bad policy. Searching customers' bags is insulting. Punching holes in receipts is stupid.

Like me, other customers are offended by your practices. Aside from several acquaintances of mine who dislike it, one colleague informed me the person in front of him merely circled the total on his charge slip, also causing the clerk to call a manager, who then proceeded to argue with the customer (another ineffective business practice). Clearly your customers are fighting back.

You should be grateful that they are, because the offended customers who aren't complaining aren't customers. They are ex-customers. How many customers do you want to drive away before you change your policy?

When I first wrote to you about this in April, I received a response from the local store manager informing me that the graceless employees you used for bag checking would be replaced by a uniformed security guard. There are two problems with this. First, the manager missed the point. It's not just the quality of the bag checker; it is the insult and nuisance of searching me. A uniformed security guard is just a greater insult and a greater nuisance.

Second, you have a corporate problem, not a local store problem. Your corporate policy must change. I do not want to hear from the local store manager. Do not forward this letter to any local store or district office. Handle it in your corporate offices. In fact, if you, the reader, are not in CompUSA's corporate office, then this letter has been mishandled. Send it back to the corporate headquarters with this paragraph highlighted.

Yours truly,
Eric Postpischil

© Copyright 1998 by Eric Postpischil.