Seriously, why does your mascot look so angry?
I tried to leave this full review on Google and Yelp, but unfortunately their character-count limits are no match for my verbosity. Here’s the full version:
One thing that really burns me is when companies engage in online review manipulation.
This is an edit to my previous Google review, because my salesman insisted that I leave a review for the P.C. Richard Plainview location before I even left the store.
He also started touching my phone to “help” me submit the review, which a) I can do just fine on my own, and b) I consider to be a significant faux pas in 2022. I don’t mind if my wife touches my phone, but that’s about it.
Needless to say, I left a positive review because the interaction was super awkward and he was literally staring at my screen as I wrote it. It’s my fault: I should have just told him no and left the store.
However, I’m not going to mention his name here because it was made clear to me that this was due to pressure from management to garner reviews, and wasn’t the salesman’s idea. In fact, I got the impression that he’d be penalized if I didn’t leave a good review.
If management is pressuring customers to write positive reviews while in the store BEFORE a transaction (delivery) is even complete, that’s absolute BS. It forces me to reconsider P.C. Richard’s 4.9-star rating on Google, and to focus more on the negative reviews, as those are clearly going to be unsolicited.
That’s one reason for this 2-star review.
Further, I went to the store to buy a TV. Specifically an OLED. Despite being clear that I already owned a Samsung QLED TV and didn’t care for the picture quality (it’s seriously disappointing when compared to an OLED panel IMO), the salesman kept trying to turn me towards QLED models. It’s not that QLEDs are bad. If that’s your thing, then go for it.
When visiting the showroom, all they have are the stock manufacturer demos on the TVs. They look great, but of course that’s the case. The demos are designed by the manufacturers to dazzle, and play to their panels’ strengths. For example, even a cheap VA LCD panel is going to look better than a top-of-the-line OLED if the cheap TV has a better demo. And the Sony demos are different to the Samsung demos and etc., so there’s really no point in having them on display, as it’s comparing apples to oranges. I asked the salesman if he could put anything else on the Samsung OLED floor model, and after some hemming and hawing the best he could do was an SD feed of a 24 hour news network.
I’d considered bringing an HDMI recorder with some HDR10 content on it to get a good comparison going, but felt like that was overkill. In the end, I just went with the Sony A95K, which they didn’t have on display anyhow, nor in stock at the store. Ultimately I chose that one based on reviews and the fact that it used Google TV (Android) rather than Samsung’s more proprietary Tizen-based OS.
As the A95K was only in stock at their warehouse, I opted for delivery. And this is one of the reasons I like P.C. Richard over, say, Amazon or Best Buy. They make their own deliveries. Amazon Logistics, UPS or FedEx are just gonna toss your TV (or whatever it is) around, but the P.C. Richard delivery people are usually careful and helpful. And indeed they were during this transaction as well.
But the P.C. Richard delivery process is a bit.. old fashioned. And that’s a real annoyance.
You can’t select a delivery window. A delivery date, yes, but even an approximate time of day, no. The sales guy told me that the night before my delivery (after 8PM) I’d be able to call a phone number to get my delivery window for the following day. I’ve worked from home since the events of 2020, so it’s not a huge deal now, but prior when I was in an office I’d have to schedule a full day off of work to receive their delivery. Not optimal. Even if they can’t possibly let you specify a morning or afternoon delivery, at least more than 12 hours advance notice would be nice.
Moreover, I work slightly strange hours, as do many people (i.e. anyone that works an evening shift). I usually wake up at 10 AM. So for me, their starting delivery window of 7 AM is the average person’s equivalent of something like 3 o’clock in the morning. Even the worst of cable and phone companies will let you pick a morning vs. afternoon appointment. (To be fair, in this instance they came around 1:45 PM and did call first so it worked out OK.)
Though it’s kinda worth the hassle for a more white-glove delivery service, it can also be a real inconvenience.
Anyhow, despite being told that I would have to call P.C. Richard to uncover my delivery window, I was actually sent a text the evening before with that info. And I was emailed. And I was called.
Then the morning of the delivery, at 8 AM, they called to once again inform me of my delivery window. While I was asleep. They also texted and emailed me.
Don’t get me wrong, I like getting text updates. But it does negate the point of phone calls.
The text that morning usefully had a link to be able to track the delivery truck on a map. Uselessly, by about 10:30AM the link stopped working, saying the session had timed out. Not sure if that’s due to a technical issue or (more likely) due to the link only being valid for a certain time period. My delivery window as 9:45 AM – 1:45 PM.
Speaking of useless links, after my delivery was completed I received another text with a link saying they’d “love to hear about [my] in-home delivery service experience”. That web page takes about a minute to render, and there’s no survey whatsoever. It’s just a generic page on the P.C. Richard site that has almost no content.
The page title says “Customer Satisfaction Survey”, but there’s no survey.
In conclusion, the TV arrived fine. The P.C. Richard price was equivalent to the Best Buy sale price, and less than the Amazon price. All told, I’m satisfied with the net result, though it took far more faffing than it should have to just to get a TV. All of the people I talked to — from the salesman to the phone reps to the delivery guys — were very personable, polite, and professional.
Honestly, I’ll probably still consider P.C. Richard for major appliances, but will definitely look around more next time.
And I hope you don’t think I’m being overly harsh over the “strongly encouraged” reviews. Online reviews are supposed to be a bastion of consumer edification, and shouldn’t be tainted by companies strong-arming their way into a fallaciously positive rating. That behavior completely ruins the point of reviews and an overall rating system. It’s a net loss for consumers, though I do understand the financial impetus behind it.
It’s especially crazy to insist that customers leave reviews before their delivery is even complete.
Lastly, it comes close to “review gating”, which is prohibited by Google’s terms of service. I can’t prove it because it was all done verbally, but if I’d said I wasn’t happy/satisfied, would I still have been imposed upon to write a negative review? Probably not.
P.C. Richard & Son: You want reviews so badly, there ya go. This one was 100% honest, without one of your employees looming over me as I wrote it.
Again, this review is in reference to the P.C. Richard & Son at 203 S Service Rd, Plainview, NY 11803. Though most of the issues I experienced probably stem from the corporate level, and would be applicable to any location.