Can I actively encourage consumers to avoid PC World?

20 minutes ago I was angry, but I'm over it now.

You'll recall me debating whether to buy a Nokia N800. Having now decided to do so, I was happy to discover that PC World now stock it. That was my mistake, and i'm over that too.

You see, having steered clear of PC World's high prices on anything that isn't an actual PC over the past ten years or so, i'd forgotten about the incompetence and lack of customer focus (that I feel I received today - just in case). In my post I refer to three main players:

1) Guy working in Fosse Park Leicester store on Sunday who said the display model would be working if I came back tomorrow. This guy isn't important, but he did kick the whole thing off by implying the same thing that eventually caused the mess.

2) Guy working in Fosse Park Leicester store on Monday who told me that I could get the item at the web price in any store, but it was out of stock there, in stock across town.

3) The manager of the St Georges Leicester store on Monday who didn't even consider making any kind of exception for me following no 2's mistake that caused me a wasted 5 mile trip across town in the rush hour.

I'll forgive the tech desk girl because she just had to handle the mess made by no.2, although if she saw me on fire I'd not expect much, and she shrugged off corporate responsibility faster than you could utter "that's the Fosse Park store" as if it excused anything. Note to big company - if you trade under one large brand, act like it. If your sister store across town makes a stupid mistake, at very least apologise. That's called damage control, and can if well exercised lead to customer retention.

The policy that screwed my retail experience sort of makes sense. If stock less than three, no web reserve. No web reserve, no web price. This is going to work better for some products than others, and it's only going to hurt them where the N800 is concerned, but this isn't my problem or what annoyed me. What did is that no. 2 was well aware of the stock level at St Georges, well aware that I was looking for the web price, and I would assume he knew that I wasn't going to be able to get it in line with their policy, yet he gave me no indication that I wouldn't be able to buy at the web price across town, as turned out to be the case.

Across town, the manager didn't manage anything where I was concerned, but its hard to know whether he had any power to. I suspect the manager of a PC World at 6:30pm might not be that high on the food chain. Perhaps they're warned not to make any decisions.

Note to big company #2 - Half an hour ago you almost sold a product currently in low demand and potentially warmed up a fairly apathetic customer (that may eventually also want to buy a mid-range laptop) for doing anything as half decent as stocking a rare product in the first place. For the sake of £30 / inability to delegate customer relations to store managers / inability to train staff on policy (delete as appropriate) you soured me beyond any hope of return to your entire chain, and you won't be selling me an N800 on any other day regardless of stock or price.

My only regret - trying to leave via the store entrance. That looked pretty stupid, but I still have my money. Somebody else, probably Misco, will get that. PC World, you get nothing, you lose, good day sir!