The day I tried being assertive

At the weekend I received some direct mail.  I opened it.  I read it.  It worked.

There was an offer in the mail which was for this:

And the price was £101.

I did some surfing.  The make was Coby, it was twin player i.e. played different discs on the separate screens and had wireless headphones.  The cheapest price I could find quickly was Amazon at £204.  This was a good deal.

I got got in the car and drove to the shop.  When I got there there was a problem.  An assistant explained there was a mistake.  The revised offer was on display.  The wireless headphones weren’t part of the offer and they were substituted with small ear bud style headphones instead (not wireless).  The image above had been Photoshopped for the shop display to remove the headphones.

But then I looked at the product on display and looked at the picture, and the product on display could only play one DVD across both screens.  I pointed that out to the assistant and he explained he could ask a manager to come over and talk to me.  I said “Will that help?” and he said “Probably not.”  I asked anyway.

The manager came over and I explained that the product for sale wasn’t the one that had been promoted in the direct mail but was, instead, this:

 

I explained that I was annoyed that I had driven to the shop for a misleading promotion and that, once in the store, the promotion was still incorrect.  He explained that the supplier had sent the wrong images over but he hadn’t realised there was still a discrepancy after the initial photo editing.  And then I said

“What I want you to do is to phone your supplier.  I want you to explain that you’ve had disgruntled customers in the shop.  I want you to tell your supplier that for one particular customer, who was really annoyed, that you want them to receive the product in the original offer, for the original offer price.  And then I want you to phone me.  I’m going to write my name and number down for you, and you’re going to phone me.”

He said he would.  And then I said

“So you’re going to make that call, and let me know how you got on.” and I offered my hand for a handshake whilst looking him in the eye.

And he confirmed he would.

We’ll see.  I made one crucial mistake.  Did you spot it?