Spent much of this afternoon at the Calne Model Railway Show. My six year old son was keen to aquire something to run on "our" model railway. As the layout is a small dockside setting, we had established that nothing larger than a six coupled tank engine would be apropriate, so we were down to deciding between a Hornby BR liveried Pug or one of the new 08s. There was only one vendor who had both of these available, so I asked, not unreasonably I felt, if I could see the 08 taken out of it's already opened box. The vendor declined, suggesting that the picture on the box was a good likeness of what was inside........ Now I know what an 08 looks like. I have seen the Hornby model running along at the back of a layout, and in a glass case at some model shops. Back then I wasn't in the market for one, today the cash was there and ready, so I wanted to take a good look before buying. I didn't hand over any cash, if I want to buy unseen there are plenty of mail order suppliers I could use. Given the benefit of time I will get out of town and check out one of the nearest specialist shops, at least I will then have the benefit of seeing the model runs properly before I take it home. I'm wondering how others consider this kind of vendor's approach? Is this normal, or am I not taken seriously because I have my six year old in tow - that means I CAN'T be a serious buyer? Since my return to model railways in the past few years I have found a disturbing number of shopkeepers who hold their customers in complete contempt. Should I just be more thick skinned and accept that customer service is no longer part of the job? Cheers, Bill.
- posted
18 years ago