Richmond Registry, I Miss Alberta DMV

Richmond Registry Disappoints Me

It’s not often I write a bad opinion/review on this page, I go out of my way to try to be objective and supportive of local businesses as I can. Anyone who knows me or has had me as a customer knows this to be true. It’s the reason I am invited to so many business grand openings, soft launch, or VIP events, I do all I can to help promote and encourage patronage of these businesses. Hence, its rare I call out poor service publicly or share my honest opinion when a business disappoints me, this was one of those times I am sad to say.

As a new resident of SW Calgary, having just relocated to Discovery Ridge neighborhood earlier in the year, I finally got around to changing my address on my drivers license, renewing my license plates and taking care of a few of the services that fall under the provision of the Alberta registry offices. A quick google map search directed me to my nearest authorized registry office, Richmond Road Registry in the Westhills shopping center area.

The location of Richmond Road Registry was convenient, next to a little Thai fast food place that I have tried a couple times and just down from a busy dollar store. Parking isn’t a problem as many businesses share the big lot and there are a lot of spaces throughout the lot. It’s a little congested right around the Dollarama, but the rest of the lot is fine and there are lots of spots including handicapped parking right out front.

As I waited in line for my turn at the wicket, I have to say I was a bit shocked by the customer interactions that I couldn’t help but overhear. Four of the Six people that were ahead of me and attempting to complete some sort of registration service were sent away without completing whatever it was that brought them in to the shop. The staff serving them was unfriendly, argumentative and generally just plain rude. I’m not doubting that many of them were missing necessary paperwork or documents, but I was in shock to hear the way the staff were speaking to those customers. When it was my turn, I approached the counter requested my registration renewal and changes, answered about 4 snarky questions and presented all of the required documents required. They completed the service I needed without even a pleasant glance, charged me about 15% more than my previous registry service in my old neighborhood, told me they couldn’t do any Alberta Health services, and I went about my way to find a registry that they said could do that.

The key things that I discovered using Richmond Road Registry to renew and change my Alberta vehicle registration to my new SW Calgary address and then checking to see if it was just me or if others had similar opinion were:

• the service was terrible, not just bad but actually terrible
• 2/3 of the other customers were turned away for a variety of reasons
• the prices are at minimum 15% higher than any other registry that I have used
• they don’t have anyone trained or ability to do any Alberta Health services, they sent me to Marda Loop registry service
• their google reviews look suspect, I’ve never seen so many 5 star reviews talk about how wonderful a single employee is at a business rated so poorly overall (whoever Rick the driving instructor is) or maybe just after dealing with the rude counter staff Rick must be a breath of fresh air. Either way, they’re highly unusual patterns in the reviews.

My Personal Opinion Isn’t Good

I won’t make use of Richmond Road Registry again nor recommend it to anyone I know. I don’t have a better option to recommend ( I did use the Marda Loop registry after these guys sent me there) and have no bias against this business other than the fact that my experience and observations there were so extremely bad. I can stomach the slightly higher prices and even the fact that they don’t offer all of the services some other Alberta registry offices do, but the lack of polite service is unacceptable. Honestly, if I owned that business I would fire every single staff member working the counter there and start over as there’s some widespread poor customer service and rudeness that has clearly become acceptable and tolerated there. My opinion, this isn’t acceptable at ANY business. I haven’t written a Google review, but if I did it wouldn’t be complimentary either. As always, your experience there may be different but for me it was not the level of service that I expect.

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