Officemax

Beginning of the story: Seriously the worst customer service I’ve ever experienced from a professional service provider. The last time I was in, not only was my order not ready, the cocky young girl gave me a full on attitude. Asked a manager for help to no avail. Ended up walking out. I wouldn’t have been back except my daughter has a preexisting order to be picked up. The clerk was working on laminating something. Stood here for a full 10 minutes before being acknowledged. Guess what? They can’t find our order. Ugh. End of the story, however, is that they found the order, printed it, didn’t charge me for it and assured me that further training was taking place within the store.

I can never find anything in this store. They have the signs on all the aisles and what’s marked on the aisles is there, but if it’s not on the sign, I have no idea where it is. I suppose it’s intuitive, but not in a way that I get.
Staff has always been helpful, but aside from the cashiers it’s a little bit of a crapshoot to find anyone on the floor to help you track something down.
Not a lot of choices in town, so have to make this work. But I always go in already feeling like I don’t know what I’m doing, or where I’m going.

Less than friendly service. I stopped in on a slow Saturday afternoon to get a refill on my black ink cartridge. There were employees standing around, and no one up front at the print refill station or any of the registers.
A female employee, Tracy eventually wandered up, and without looking at me asked: «What do you need, ma’am?» I replied «Just an ink refill.» Without even looking up, she announced: «that will be a 24 hour turnaround on that.» I’m looking around at the empty store, and the employees doing nothing, so I was quite surprised at her lack of customer care. I curiously asked why it would take 24 hours? She snottily replied «Because that’s that way it’s always been done.» and then something about not enough manpower to do it.
Now, I’ve taken my ink cartridges here before, and it takes a max of 5 – 10 minutes. Considering there was no one waiting today for ink, and the store was not busy at all, I feel she could have been a little more accommodating than that. It’s as if she didn’t want to be bothered with me and wanted me to just go away.
Fortunately, another employee, a young man, walked up just then & checked behind the counter and it turned out that they actually had my style ink cartridge in stock, so I could just do an even exchange. She quipped: «I guess you don’t have to wait 24 hours after all.»
Office Max has a great deal on ink refills, but customer service is lacking. I’ll stick to Costco for ink refills next time. Cheaper prices and friendlier employees.

Big box store convenience. Plain and simple. Located on Bend’s Eastside, it’s on our way to and from work. They seem to have what we need and prices are competitive. We’ve been shopping here for years and have spent thousands of company dollars here and a few of our own.
Pros:
Selection. If it’s not in the store, they are always more than willing to order it. However, we’ve only utilized this a couple of times of the years. 99% of the time, they have what we need right there, in stock.
Warranty. On the «pro» side of things, we have utilized this add on purchase and gotten our money’s worth from it. For a few extra bucks, we’ve replaced countless office chairs, fax machines and copiers that have failed before their «time» and the warranty replacement is typically a phone call, a few pictures and then a gift card arrives in the mail.
Service. Hard to believe that employees at a big box store would recognize their patrons, but they do. At least they recognize us. Which says a couple things. Either we are in there way too often, spending way too much money or we are the KOOKY couple who are in there way too often spending way too much money. Another reason may be that they have low turn over who recognizes the kooky couple that comes in way too often and spends lots of money in there. Still, in today’s day and age, it is nice to be recognized for your patronage and loyalty.
Cons:
Warranty. On the negative, sometimes the «up sale» can be a bit pushy. They had this one employee (haven’t seen him for awhile, so maybe he is gone) who was downright annoying. He didn’t LISTEN when we would say, «Yes, we know how this works.» The warranty replacement is not something you should by for a pencil. C’mon folks.
Service. Along the same lines, we are very familiar with the store, it’s layout and where everything is located. As I said, we’ve been shopping here for years. And sometimes, I just like to wander and LOOK at things. Here’s a little secret about me: I love stores like this. Be it a hardware store or office supply store. I like to look at things and daydream. I’m not always looking for something to buy and wandering around in frustration because I can’t find what I’m looking for. Trust me, if I can’t find it, I’ll ask. So the, «Can I help you?» gets a little overwhelming at times. Pretty pathetic when the same sales associate doesn’t even remember asking you that question 10 minutes ago.
In conclusion:
I do miss the «mom & pop» stores but those are such a distant memory, stores like this are the norm today and OfficeMax suits our needs. In truth, were it another big box store chain (like Staples at the north end of town) we’d probably be just as loyal to this location. In other words, it’s not really the OfficeMax chain we are loyal to so much as it is this location and the service and selection of this particular store.