joker.iki.fi

In my series of rants about customer service, here’s another one. For those lucky enough not to need glasses or contact lenses, let me explain how the process of procuring the mentioned necessities is supposed to work.

1. Go to the optician to get your eyes checked
2. Place an order for lenses or contacts
3. Wait for the delivery of your order
4. Go to the optician and get your contacts/lenses

(And after this most typically just order the contacts from the internet since it’s cheaper and easier that way, no need to do the step 1 anymore.)

Well, how it really happens, at least in the case of Instrumentarium is as follows:

1. Book your time to see the optician in Sello.
2. Wait for your appointment, which is after two weeks.
3. Go to the appointment, during a work day, and wait for extra 30 minutes since the optician is busy.
4. Get your eyes measured
5. Place an order for the contact lenses (on pair for testing).
6. Wait for three weeks for delivery, and the SMS which will inform me of arrived order
7. Start calling to Instrumentarium every day for a week to find nobody answers
8. Go visit them (during a work-day), wait 20 minutes for someone to be available in the store.
9. Hear that the order got actually delivered after 1 week after me placing the order but for some reason me not getting the SMS
10. Book another time to get “important training on the use of contact lenses” before I can actually use them
11. Find out that the next available time is in three weeks
12. Get a “bit” annoyed and ask them to book me a time from the Instrumentarium in Kontula (close by where I live) where I actually manage to get the time within 1 week. At this point I need to pay them 30 euros to get the pair of lenses and have them send me off to Kontula.
13. Go to Instrumentarium of Kontula (which actually turned out to be a lot better than the one in Sello), get the formal training in the secret art of contact lenses.
14. Find that the pair is not actually very good for me since I can’t see too well with them
15. Hear lots of explanations, some making some sense and some less so, I get the Kontula Optician to place another order for a new pair from another manufacturer.
16. Wait one week and after the successful arrival of the SMS, get the new pair.
17. This pair actually works.

30 euros poorer (not too bad) and about two months older, I got myself a pair of working contact lenses. I estimate I spend something like two to three workdays worth of effort in going through the process.

Let me just place a little humble wish. Instrumentarium, please. Get a grip. You sell glasses and contact lenses and some other random shit. It’s not like you need to split the atom and move mountains to do it. It should not be this difficult, really.