I made an appointment, in person, at Strait Floors in Port Townsend. I brought a floor plan with me but they wanted to come out and measure for themselves. That was fine and expected despite my in-hand floor plan. I gave them my mobile number and left the store. This was Monday. The appointment was for 9am Thursday. The 9 o'clock hour came and went Thursday and the individual with whom I made the appointment was a no-show. Okay, things happen. I went about my day still at home all day. I was surprised not to even get a call, however. At 4:00 p.m. I called the business and the person answering the phone--we'll call him "John"--responded immediately when I told him my name with "We've been trying to call you all day. YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED YOUR PHONE!!" I said something like "Hold on there. Before you accuse me of not answering my phone please explain why no one showed up for the appointment?" "John" responded with "I don't like your tone!" and HUNG UP ON ME. I immediately called back but there was no answer--they were obviously refusing to answer my phone call! I was stunned by this behavior because I wasn't even that upset about the missed appointment--hey, emergencies happen--but without even bothering to verify that they had the right phone number (I suspect maybe it was written down wrong) the individual accused me of not answering my phone! As if I would have a reason not to answer if I was expecting them to be at my house for an appointment??? The business card I was given by the individual with whom I made the appointment (who, as it turns out, was the manager of that store) also had contact information for Strait Floors in Sequim so I called that number and spoke first to what I took to be a more junior individual who heard my story and was almost as surprised as I was that this had happened and quite sympathetic; he went away for a long time, probably while he explained it to his manager, and then that guy, who I think called himself a "general manager" came on the phone and just said his name and instead of offering an explanation or apology right off the bat--he said that he'd been told the story--he just said his name and I had to go through the whole explanation again. That was a little weird. I didn't know the relationship between this gentleman and the Port Townsend store but this guy verified that he indeed did have some authority over both places but indicated that he wouldn't do anything "because he wanted to have the Port Townsend store manager handle it," i.e. the behavior of their employee who I'm referring to as "John." And then he offered to send someone out from the Sequim store "if I didn't want to deal with those people at Port Townsend." Now this was almost as bad to me as the other guy being accusatory, without cause or provocation, and hanging up on me. He was kind of admitting there was an issue without admitting there was an issue and instead of trying to rectify it was offering to have another store, much further away, handle the estimate. The fact that they would acknowledge something was wrong (but not apologize for it either) and then try to just gloss over what had happened was another weird and surprising response to me. I found the whole interaction baffling and very disappointing because the business seems like they carry a wide range of products--I was ready to spend several thousand $ on cork flooring--and I would much prefer to do business locally rather than going to a some place in Seattle, for instance, or even an online retailer. Now it's been more than a week. I actually waited this many days to write a review because I was giving them a chance to at least contact me with an explanation and make an effort to try to keep my business but for whatever reason that has not happened. It's too bad, really. I kept rehearsing in my mind the response of "John" to my call to ask why the appointment was missed because it was so uncalled for and so out of the blue. Instead of opening with, "You haven't answered your phone!!" It would have been really, really simple to say, "Oh, Mr. X. Thank you for calling us. We've been trying to contact you by phone... Oh, you didn't get a call? Well, let's make sure we have the correct number..." etc. etc. etc. If that had happened I would probably be writing them a check by now... p.s. I don't like the 5-star rating system much, here or anywhere; this rating is only about this particular contact with the business. Perhaps if they found "John" a job, oh, let's say stocking a Safeway store after hours where he didn't have to interact with the public, and they replaced him with the first guy I talked to at Sequim, this business might be worth considering. read more
