Barnes & Noble

I have been a customer of Barnes & Noble for years - I was elated when it carried my first book in the local Bay Area stores without problem. When I decided to go digital and went with a relatively new publisher, still, I stayed with B&N - I have the Nook reader because it is more versatile than the big guy's reader and allows me to use platforms other than the big guy's. My attitude, however, is darkening where it concerns B&N's physical store in my area. Three times today my calls were put on hold for an inordinately long time, dropped, or I got attitude. When I did speak with a sales representative, I discovered that unless I wanted something on the NY Times Book List, he was useless - and rude. Is it any wonder people are walking away from bookstores to buy their books online when the assistance one receives is less than cordial or helpful? Is it just me or have other people experienced rudeness and bad service at large bookstores?

I have two Barny Noble brick and mortars to go to. The bigger one is about twelve miles away, and the smaller one is about fifteen miles away. I have had lousy, even criminal (failure to sell me a product at the reasonable posted price) customer service at the big one. I was told not sit on the floor in a remote corner, despite that all five of the chairs were occupied and part of my purchasing a Nook was an invitation to read in the store up to an hour a day. So I go to the smaller one which has fewer of my wishlist items in it and still sometimes gets my goat but doesn't irritate me the way the bigger one does; usually I get useful customer service there.

I buy most of my books from BN.COM and have complaints about them too. Their web site is a poky mess; the wishlist set up promises a lot and doesn't deliver. There e-mail customer service agents uniformly ignore the contents of a complaint (several time multi-book sets came with only the first book or first box of books in the set) and reply to some imaginary complaint with an assertion that the customer is wrong. I have had fairly good service on the telephone.

Why do I still use them? Because they ship by mail and provide package tracking. Because they have good prices on a big catalog. Because they are better than Amazon. I would buy more from the Book Depository except that you can't track the packages.

Service at Borders used to be hit and miss. They seemed to be gentler when they realized that they weren't bringing in enough money to stay open.

Robert

Book Depository is owned by Amazon, too, ftr. So while I sometimes use them, because they sometimes have the best price on a book+free shipping to my non-English speaking country, I am never happy about it. Twice I had books not show, and the first time the guy immediately was like, a month is too long - dispatching new one right now!, the second time the woman was like Well I will look into it and if it turns out that way, then we can send you a new one. Like, really?? So that makes me worried that one of these times they're going to say no, and then I'm screwed. (oh and I've been living here for 3.5yrs and never had ANY other mail/pkg not reach me, so it is clearly something with them.)

Anyhow. I don't live in a country with BN anymore, but they were by far my favorite of the large bookstores. I never really deal with the people working in them, I find things on my own and try to avoid workers in stores. I recall being in them when my mom wanted assistance with something or other and they were always fine then.

I use B&N all the time, both online and brick and mortar.
They've exchanged my Nook Touch for a Nook Glow - no problem.
Never had a shipping problem.
Customer Service has been good, not great.
Maybe it's the area that you live in.

San Francisco Bay Area, that's my area.

#4 cyderry,
Exactly how did you get them to exchange the Touch for the Glow?

I had my Simple for less than a year, and when they introduced the Simple with Glowlight, I sought to do an exchange. The fellow in the B&N b&m told me it'd be no problem, but I'd have to handle it through Customer Service, and wrote down the phone number for me. I called the number and the representative told me they ~never~ had a policy to exchange and upgrade; acted like I was trying to sell him snake oil.

I like the Nook, but can't read it in low light and the external clip-on lights are woefully inadequate. My two 1150 e-book readers (backlit) still work after ten years, but I can't get new content for them.

I worked for B&N for awhile in a brick store. I took pride in my work.It is hard to do when you make $ 8.50 per hour. It is also hard when you factor in rudeness by the customer, which is on the increase.

I prefer B&N over Amazon any day as a customer. Amazon is too much like Walmart for my tastes.

My print books are on Amazon only because Lulu' s distribution does not discriminate. However, my ebooks and print books are in B&N.

MGP

Barnes & Noble and all the other big stores are putting the independent bookstores out of business. That's worth a tear or two.

Our B &N in Boulder is very nice. Good customer service and courteous.

I absolutely love my Nook HD. I have read something on it every night since I got it on January 4th. The magazines have been wonderful along with some great books. I read the new C. J. Cherryh immediately, even though I have a signed hardbound coming from her. I just couldn't wait.

I hope that their new epublishing venture works out. I know they've already changed a few things since the initial launch because authors had trouble with some stuff. I think that's a good sign. I'd love to see them make a good comeback.

Amazon is not my favorite place. They removed my store for Forward Motion for no reason at all -- the note said someone had done something that was associated with us. That wasn't ME and I was the only person with control over the store. No other explanation at all. Not what was done, not who had done it.

And now my books are randomly resetting to draft on the site. I suggest everyone check their work there to make certain it's still being offered.

All in all, I like Smashwords far better.

Zette, Barnes & Noble was one of the first POD options as iUniverse, right after Xlibris. I tried both, and found B&N superior. I also found a friend at the B&N local store that showed me how to circumvent the store's 'dragon lady' and get service. He's been advocating for stocking local indie authors' works even if they are produced by Lightning Source or another POD. If they bend those corporate rules just a bit, I think more people would shop there.

I have a Nook Tablet and Simple Touch with GlowLight and use one for home and the smaller one for travel. My only complaint about the HD is that it feels too light for its size. I like the weight of the Tablet. The HD has some incredible features. I tried a Kindle Fire and thought, nope, my Tablet computer is better. I'm actually typing on my tablet computer right now - laptops have gone by the wayside for me. If B&N offered Documents to Go for the Nook Tablet, I would use it as my go-to computer, but it doesn't.

I have just a little note program for my Nook HD and I type on it and it automatically emails the stuff to me. Pretty handy, really. I wouldn't want to do any extensive writing on it, but it's good for short work.

I have a notebook and I have a netbook, but I work almost exclusively on my desktop with the HUGE monitor which is great or graphic work and for editing without getting headaches from reading a lot of small print. LOL.

I do read something on my Nook Tablet every night before I go to sleep. Most often it is an article or two from one of the many magazine subscriptions. They give me something to think about.

I've held the Kindle Fire a few times and it just didn't feel right to me. It's one of those things where you just get used to something and like it better.

Zette, I know what you mean about the Kindle. I got used to the page turning animation that the Nook for Android tablet has, and I love it. The Nook tablet doesn't have that - but, I like the large screen on the Nook Tablet so I can read magazines and do crossword puzzles. My birthday is in four weeks, so I'm hoping to trade in one of my electronic toys for the HD+ - I played with one today after church and loved it. It's a bit heaver than the Nook HD and the page is larger and it has the page animations. Better screen.

My husbands beloved Sony reader seems to have died and he's not happy. He might get my HD and I'll go for an HD+ -- or maybe not. I do have an older Nook, too -- and he's mostly just interested in reading and not anything else. But it would be an excuse to move up. LOL

I donate my used electronica to either someone who wants one and can't afford it or I donate to a school. I'm also going to ask if the Senior Center in my neighborhood will take them.