DSLRUsers.com

Along George St, Sydney. I forget the actual address - but it's next to mid city shopping centre.

This was a few years back. I was looking to buy a particular computer part. They deal with computers & electronics as well as camera stuff. I asked for a very specific part, as I knew they dealt with that brand. I asked for it by name, he tried to side step and offer a competitor's part for less. I insisted on that particular brand. He kept asking why. I answered saying I've read favourable reviews of that item, and I was aware of a very useful online resource of many thousands of users (not unlike this D70 forum for the Nikon camera ). He kept arguing the pros of the competing brand and stating the cons of my choice of brand - asking me to go to tomshardware to read the review. I replied with my opinion of tomshardware, which he didn't take well... Thus started the personal insults. I have never been belittled or spoken down upon by any sales person like that before. Our conversation basically ended by when he gave me the quote: "I know you won't buy from here, so I'll just give you the price to have you go away".
Of course after that, I had absolutely no interest in buying from them ever again.

When I come across unfavourable shopping experiences, I usually don't make a fuss (eg. call over the manager, etc) but let my pockets have the final say - take my business elsewhere. My "do no trade with" list is only two shops long: CCC camera warehouse and Fluidtek.

Onyx wrote:Our conversation basically ended by when he gave me the quote: "I know you won't buy from here, so I'll just give you the price to have you go away".
Of course after that, I had absolutely no interest in buying from them ever again.

When I come across unfavourable shopping experiences, I usually don't make a fuss (eg. call over the manager, etc) but let my pockets have the final say - take my business elsewhere.

I take a slightly different approach. I start with the premise that the manager of the store is usually professional, and as such, he or she has a geniune desire to want to see you satisfied. Thus, if one of their staff is failing to provide you with that satisfaction, they should be willing to listen, actively, to your comments and genuine complaints.

They might not be happy with the message that you're conveying, but any manager worth his or her manager title should be willing to listen to you openly and honestly, and in a non-defensive manner.

As soon as they become defensive, all bets are off, of course, but until that point, you can usually make a good and valid argument, and give them a chance to at least learn from the exercise.

The one other point that I often exercise is that I will often refer a matter to the level one level above the current level's supervisor; ie, I go to the supervisor's supervisor. It's a slightly top-down approach that can usually get around any local friendship networks that might be built up in-house between immediate management levels.

The bottom line here is that good managers not only like to know when their staff do well, they also appreciate being told when their staff are out of line, so that the issue can be addressed.