— Customer Service —

Office Max Perks not so rewarding..

October 16, 2008

SO, today, I got the biggest surprise, and it wasn’t a good one. I have been a dedicated customer of Office Max for a while now, especially since the first time I ever went in there for business cards, the guy in the Impress section bent over backwards to help me. Since that day, I’ve gone back there three times myself, and sent many many people over there just raving about the excellent service. Well, today, I’m not raving, but rather, ranting. It’s not about the local store though. I still have pretty darn good service there, but I’m debating ever going back because of my experience this afternoon when calling their customer service line. I even went in there early this afternoon to order cards for an upcoming conference this month. 

Well, when I got home, I checked the mail, and saw a mailer with a different account number than what I’ve been using in the store. It didn’t match anything that I had every used. I decided to try logging into my account, and received a screen telling me to call their 800# for assistance. 

I called, and spoke to a customer service agent. She told me that I had two accounts, and when I asked her to delete the account that didn’t have any activity, she told me that neither of the accounts were showing any activity. I told her that couldn’t be possible as I have at least three orders for business cards alone. She couldn’t find them. She put me on hold and asked a supervisor about why they wouldn’t show, and was told to tell me that Impress purchases do not count. I thought that was odd because I remember a promotion where they offered extra rewards points with any Impress purchase a few months ago. I went back to the OfficeMaxPerks website to check their Terms of Service for what was allowed. and here is what I found:

Qualified Purchases

Qualifying purchases are any products or services in our stores, catalogs or web site except for computers, gift cards, sales tax, purchases with a Retail Connect card, purchases made prior to the date of enrollment, and purchases made with your MaxPerks rewards.

I read that to the CSA word for word, and she agreed with me that it sounded strange, but insisted they weren’t going to give me credit for my Impress purchases. It was at this point that I asked to speak with a supervisor. I wasn’t even upset yet. No, I didn’t get upset until I spoke to “Karen the supervisor”. 

Karen came on the phone and didn’t seem like she even wanted to listen to me. When she spoke to me, I felt she was very demeaning. I explained to her that I somehow had two accounts, and she interrupted me with “Well, you aren’t supposed to have two accounts.”   I know that. That’s why I was calling. I told her that I was calling to fix this issue, and all I wanted was the account with no activity deleted. This is when the CSA told me that neither account had activity, and I was questioning how that could be since my card had been scanned for all purchases. Then she says to me in a snide voice “Well, have you looked at your account yourself?” No, I couldn’t log in, which is what brought me to this phone call in the first place. 

She argued with me over whether or not my card had been scanned. I assured her that it was. I always verified as soon as my receipt is handed to me, and before I left the store that the bottom of the receipt had my member ID on it. Each one did have it. My mistake was not filing my receipts because now, I’m not going to get credit for anything. Even though I can verify that I purchased the cards there, and can get my card statements matching the date of purchase to the date on the sticker on the box of cards. She tells me that she can’t do anything else for me. Now don’t you think that Office Max should be able to do something, since my card was definitely scanned at point of purchase? If I’m willing to send in bank statements and copies of the label on my business cards, don’t you think something could be done? 

The statement that took the cake with me though. “Well, you DO know that you have to have $500 worth of purchases to get any rewards, right? Three business card purchases won’t matter in the end. You won’t have enough.” First off, you don’t know how much I planned on spending in the next two and a half months there. Honestly, speaking to me the way she did, and the lack of willingness to help has totally turned me off from going back there (‘cept to pick up my completed cards). I am currently in the process of looking for another custom printing place to make my business cards for any future orders. 

I really debated writing this post, but in the end, I think I was more about letting everyone know that I feel customer service is key. No matter how big your company is. I used to work for FedEx, in the call center. We had to take classes before we were allowed to take phone calls. Working there, I gained a major respect for anyone that works in customer service, and I always worked to find a way to help out the customer in some really interesting situations. I gained a lot of dedicated customers this way. Thanks for listening to my experience, and I hope that Office Max can help others in the future, unlike the way they “helped” me.

 

    UPDATE: So.. I got an email from their Customer Relations Manager, very apologetic, and asking if we could talk on Monday… She said someone would call me Monday after 2pm.. and well.. it’s now 2:58 and I haven’t heard anything.. Hopefully I’ll have some good news to pass on… If not, I’ll be blogging it ’till it’s resolved!

11 thoughts on “Office Max Perks not so rewarding..”

  1. I work for a major bank in customer service for their fraud department and i am always soooooooo proud of the agents i supervise when they really go the extra mile to help someone.

    Office max Customer Service sounds like a bunch of big honkin losers. After seeing this, I won’t spend another dime there and i’ll tell the agents i work with about this too. Even though we work from home we still buy a great deal of office supplies and such, we can spend elsewhere any day of the week. I’m glad you posted this

    Nessas last blog post..Deco Drama

  2. @Nessa..
    Hey girl.. I was contacted by their customer relations manager today.. Very apologetic. I’m set to talk to them Monday afternoon. I’ll have to update as soon as I find out what’s going on..

    Thanks for the support on this one!!!

  6. I had the same thing happen to me-not good customer service-not even average. I stop at Office Max because it’s on the way home from work.
    I buy toner and letterhead paper on a regular basis.
    When I called Office max the customer service person told me that I was the only person to complain about max perks being a scam and don’t believe what you see on the internet. They wouldn’t have changed over to max perks on the net from instore credits if it didn’t make them money
    Give me a break.

  7. First let me say that i am one that bends over backwards for customers that are reasonable and treat me like i exist not like im some mindless drone. Second, we work without raises so you can still get you maxperk rewards (perspective?). Now this issue is definately wrong. I would suggest that you take the information to the store and explain the situation to the manager or worker and see it they can speak for you. Some are willing if you ask. BUt for the ones that insist on making all of us pay because you experience bad service in one store heres my two cents. When you stop shopping at an entire chain you hurt innocent people that would be more than glad to assist you. I find that it is smart to just go to another location if i get better service there( and i will travel for good customer service). That is what customer loyalty really means.

  9. January 14, 2010

    Hi Monica,

    Thank you for your posting (even though it was 2 years ago). I want to generate bad publicity for OfficeMax here and tell the rest of the world my horrible experience with them (never do business with them again). If it takes Customer Relations to fix this problem, then I’m officially never buying from OfficeMax. I found Customer Service both rude and unhelpful. A manager had just hung up on me – I was trying to escalate the priority of my complaint so I would not have to write this, but she instead hung up on me. Here is my experience: I bought an expensive printer from OfficeMax, only because they promised a reward. Me being naive, I signed up for MaxPerks and bought the printer. They didn’t honor the MaxPerks reward, despite it being on their advertisement, so I sent over 10 emails, in the span of 3 months, for them to honor the MaxPerks reward. It eventually came, but at the cost of 10-emails, numerous phone calls, and 10 hours of my time. With the MaxPerks rewards, I ended up ordering some items online (that OfficeMax cancelled! false advertising) and I ended up getting a replacement gift card. I ordered another item online (that OfficeMax cancelled yet again!) and they sent another replacement gift card. Seeing that the online order is an incredible failure, I go to OfficeMax to buy another item using this gift card. After a 30 minute drive, they tell me that the gift card has 0 balance. I call immediately and I was promised that within 48 hours, the card would have its balance and I would receive an e-mail, another hour or two lost. 6 days later, nothing. Subsequently, I call OfficeMax and ask to speak to a manager. She says all she can do is do a feedback form for an “inconvenience”. I was upset, an inconvenience? 12 hours, do you know how much I make per hour that it’s an “inconvenience”. After a few more minutes, she tells me she cannot do anything, I make sure she actually noted my complaint, and in the middle of doing so, she hangs up on me. OfficeMax – I’ve dealt with Customer Service with BestBuy,Victoria Secret, Staples, OfficeDepot, Amazon, and they were able to easily issue me gift cards. I never had to escalate it like this. So, I am telling anyone who reads this, beware of OfficeMax. They lie and cheat to take your money. They ignore the voice of the consumer.

  10. I can verify the awful scam that is Office Max’s Max Perks Rewards. I turned in 19 ink cartridges (for $57 to be credited to my Max Perks card) and checked my Max Perks card after it should have been credited. Not there. Called Max Perks and they said they have no record of it. Called the specific store and they need to see the receipt from 20 days ago showing I turned them in. I keep all important receipts but don’t feel I need to keep receipts to cover Office Max’s mistakes. The manager had no reaction or caring at all, and didn’t even bother to fake an “I’m sorry this happened”. For personal and business use I am completely done with Office Max (not the first issue).

  11. Hi, I am so upset right now that I will never shop at Office Max again. I am a small home office so when I saw that they had a promotion to get max perks back when purchasing certain items I ordered enough to get $160.00 back in Max Perks awards. on the first 2 calls of me explaining they said they would credit my account. When it did not happen, on the third call she told me I had not entered my acct number. I explained that I had loged on with my password before I ordered and they had my max number assoicated with my account. She agreed they had it, but again siad she was sorry that I had to actually enter my max number again to get the perks and that there is no way to go back now. I told here that I would have entered it if it was requested. She said sorry that it was clear in the terms and conditions. Who reads the fine print??? I told them if they really wanted to honor their promotion they would have placed that information on the check out page. I just tried going in with my password and account and ordering something again with an item that you get Max Perks back on and there is no place to enter you max number. Also I went to their terms and conditions and it is pages and pages of fine print. II told them they intentionally hid that important fact in there so they would not have to give me my $160.00. I asked for a supervisor and was give a another rep. The second time I asked for her boss and was given a ‘mentor’ Her name was Kelly and her ext was 1101285. She was very rude and kept saying I should have read the fine print. MAX PERKS is a scam. !!

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