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The CEO of Circuit City has been voted as one of the worst for 2007. I’m not too surprised as it resonates with my own personal experience.

Over the weekend, I was at a Circuit City store because I wanted to redeem an $80 certificate which I had from my CC rewards credit card. I found a few items that I wanted and the total came to $70 and change. Upon checking out, the cashier had a puzzled look on her face as she noticed that the balance on the certificate was showing up as zero even though the value of the certificate was greater than the total.

She looked at the front and the back of the certificate and proceeded to consult one of her supervisors who did the same thing. The supervisor then told me that I should call the number on the certificate and they would be able to check the balance. Okay, so I made the purchase and headed home.

When I got home, I looked over the certificate carefully and there on the fine print on the back of the certificate was the statement that it was a one-time use only certificate. Had the cashier or the supervisor told me that at the store, I would have made sure to spend up to the full value of the certificate.

I called the customer service department of Circuit City and voiced my displeasure. My point is that…

1. The employees should be familiar with the types of certificates/gift cards that the company issues and the terms for each.

2. Why have the fine print just on the back of the certificate and not also in bold on the front?

This makes for a really bad customer experience. And guess what? Since Circuit City is really in a commodity business, they aren’t going to keep any customers with this kind of terrible service. As a reseller of electronics, they compete on service and price. Well, guess what? Next time I’m going to Best Buy or purchasing directly from places like Buy.com or TigerDirect.

The only reason I go to Circuit City is because I had gotten a credit card from them that has this rewards program when I purchased my last laptop.

Maybe I’m not so surprised that their stock price is now at the levels it was in the 1990’s.

The moral of the story is that if you’re going to be competing in a commodity business, you better make sure that you have good customer experience as that is what is going to distinguish you from your competitors.

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