CSN Supply Store

Full review
My first piece of advice is to use your American Express card when dealing with this company; you're going to need it. Let me tell you why.

CSNs services and customer relations are frankly, incredibly bad; this is (I suspect) largely due (in part) how CSN works through a separate delivery company: there is a severe lack of coordination between the two. In addition, I also suspect that it is part of CSNs corporate environment as will be discussed later on in this posting.

I attempted to order an item, only to be told that I was required to be present when the item was delivered.

Hm. Okay.

My consulting company has a service in which they routinely accept US, Fed Ex, US Postal service, Hand / Special Delivery services, etc. through a third party mailing service; I've never had a problem with this service and nor has anyone else. Despite my pointing this out to CSNs freight / shipping company, I was then told that I would have to change my address.

When I attempted to change the delivery address to accommodate CSN's / Freight companys delivery process (and the new location was only a mile way from the originally requested delivery location!), I would be told to leave a message with employee X because she wasn't in and she was the only one who could answer this question for me.

It was only then five days later (!) that I was informed that there would be an additional delivery charge (so much for free delivery!) for the change of address that I was asked to undertake for their behalf! In effect, I was going to get charged normal delivery rates now, and when I attempted to explain my position, I was informed by the CSN customer representative, "It's on the website. Didn't you read our website on these matters?" "Well, yes I did read your website - otherwise, I wouldn't have ordered from CSN, as you offered free shipping - and there was no mention of any stipulations regarding particular delivery requirements."
"Well, they're there; you just gotta read the website."

Mind you, I have worked in large government entities (as well as private companies) in regards to Procurement and I understand how these things work; it appeared to me to be a 'bait and switch' routine. Given this, it's only natural that I call into question the quality of the products.

I also attempted to explain to the CSN Rep. how, despite calling them (CSN as well as the shipping company) repeatedly for several days to determine the status of the delivery address change, I was either constantly told '145they'll get back to me later on' or 'you'll have to call CSN / the Shipping company'; in effect, one was bouncing me back to the other. He wasn't interested in my situation, and only repeated to me 'well, that's the delivery company doing that; that's not us.'

It wasn't until the actual scheduled date of the delivery, at 3 PM, (good thing I had not re-scheduled my time!) that I received another call from CSN asking me 'what is wrong?' I suspect that CSN only called because I had by then cancelled the order as I was no longer certain I would ever receive a response to my previous inquirers! And, when I attempted to calmly point out my concerns (after all, you never know when a company will do a 'mea culpa' and offer you a true break – if not a possible discount), the CSN employee instead kept on stating to me 'we're on your side!' and 'who did you talk to' and 'what was their full name?' I pointed out that during my conversations with CSN, I would only be given the employees first name and no employee identification number, I now instead received criticism from a clearly harried employee who simply wanted to get this mess resolved at my cost!

In fact, during one point in our discussion, I had to calm the CSN representative down as he was becoming more and more agitated. I frankly, almost felt sorry for the poor guy, but when he started lecturing me about how 'things are done in the real world' (although I felt truly tempted to tell the CSN representative, 'listen: I've been working in the real world on this kind of stuff now for nearly 20 years,!), that's when I politely instead said, 'thank you and have a nice day' - and simply hung up.

CSN was not interested in hearing my concerns; they were only interested in relating to me my lack of knowledge on how items are ordered and delivered - and above all, how they need to get paid.

And, to top it off, CSN informed me that even though I cancelled the order, I was still obligated to pay the delivery charge for something that wasn't delivered in the first place as the CSN employee admitted to me while speaking to me that 'they weren't sure which address to go for delivery!'

Fortunately, since I ordered this through American Express, I followed Am Ex's instructions and informed CSN to contact Am Ex. Am Ex, had, by this time, cancelled my order in advance of this telephone call from CSN (Am EX, after hearing what had happened, clearly understood and agreed with my position and promptly cancelled the order, even assuring me that I would not be held financially responsible for any charges, inclusive of delivery charges) – but obviously, CSN and it's staff clearly have a communication problem - particularly when it comes to their having a indifferent - if not somewhat hostile - attitude towards the customer.

I do not recommend CSN. Fortunately, there are many, many others to chose from.