Customer service

keith

keith

Member
Messages
638
Customer service seems now to be a bonus as opposed to normal practice!
It all began with the Covid where companies all too quickly realised that it was the perfect excuse for doing a half hearted job. Unfortunately that is now beyond wearing a bit thin, so now they just continue with half hearted service as the norm.
in the last week I’ve had a bed and sofa company deliver a new bed without checking it was convenient, and when I complained, they told me they didn’t have room in their warehouse, so it would be better stacked up against the wall in my home. When I explained it wasn’t good enough or acceptable, the person said he didn’t care as he was not being paid by me!
Then I had a problem with my bank, where it took an hour and a half to find out the explanation of a letter they sent to me!! They then said they weren’t obliged to leave a message when they rang - so no knowledge of the problem till the letter arrived, when I complained that wasn’t acceptable, they then decided that they did leave a message, of which there is no evidence. In essence, which was the real lie! Whilst I will never use rude or foul language, when presented with such incompetence I will be condescending and arrogant, which as a customer I feel is fair enough, and as a service provider I feel they must accept that for their failures. Instead I’m told I’m not being respectful. Perhaps try and respect me as the customer, and stop talking garbage might be a better way forward.
Whilst America has its issues, at least they have more interest in the word ‘service’. Over here all we get is woke rubbish, from young people who you can barely understand, between their unintelligible ‘gangsta’ speak!!
Clearly I’m better no politically incorrect in these sensitive times, but rant over!
 
CatmanV2

CatmanV2

Member
Messages
48,817
My most recent experience with banks has been shocking. Utterly appalling.

OTOH my recent experience with (of all people) Sodastream was breath taking in the quality of their service

C
 
allandwf

allandwf

Member
Messages
10,995
CatmanV2 said:
My most recent experience with banks has been shocking. Utterly appalling.

OTOH my recent experience with (of all people) Sodastream was breath taking in the quality of their service

C
Click to expand...
I detest banks, and my latest experiences with the RBS could fill this forum for days! Not just banks though, I had a home report done which had over 10 fundamental errors, stated was semi detached when clearly detached amongst others, I replied by email to my sister, or so I thought, stating they were either lazy, incompetent, or both, but sent it to them. lol
 
Felonious Crud

Felonious Crud

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
21,201
On the other hand, I dealt with Amazon customer services this morning and was delighted with the outcome. My friendly local Fiat dealer is also very good, and the local tyres guys nothing short of brilliant.
 
CatmanV2

CatmanV2

Member
Messages
48,817
Felonious Crud said:
On the other hand, I dealt with Amazon customer services this morning and was delighted with the outcome. My friendly local Fiat dealer is also very good, and the local tyres guys nothing short of brilliant.
Click to expand...

Never found Amazon CS very good, but then it's cheap. I don't expect service as well.

I should mention our local F1 is nearly always nothing short of excellent. Last time used them I recall was rubbers for the Jaaaag exhaust. Gave them the rubbers that I could not install (a pair but only asked for one to be done). On my return some 15 minutes later was fielded by the manager with both my old rubbers before I could get into the office and no charge.

OK they ****** up big time with the all season tyres I ordered but that makes about two mistakes in 15+ years

C
 
Last edited:
M

MAF260

Member
Messages
7,662
I’ve had my current account with First Direct for almost 30 years and have nothing but high praise for them, they have provided consistently excellent service. Halifax are altogether different in my experience, not least after I suffered identity theft and lost over £50k from an account with them which should and could have been easily stopped. I got the money back eventually.

Other recent outstanding service came from a hotel in Manchester we stayed at a couple of weeks ago. A comment I made in answer to some requested feedback resulted in a room upgrade and the 3 nights of accommodation being refunded in full - wholly unexpected!

I tend to find the worst customer service from any broadband supplier I’ve ever used; Virgin Media the incumbent substandard provider. Other notable poor service providers are insurance companies - a recent issue with Admiral will have me blacklisting them from all future policies.
 
CatmanV2

CatmanV2

Member
Messages
48,817
Maybe I should move. My HSBC Premier used to be excellent but of late.....

As forr Virgin, in 20ish years I've never had more than transient issues. Of course it helps that I can determine what are Virgin issues and what are my issues ;)


C
 
conaero

conaero

Forum Owner
Messages
34,633
Been with Lloyds both personal and business forever

Utterly cr@p I don’t know why I don’t move
 
SE_123

SE_123

Member
Messages
416
keith said:
Whilst America has its issues, at least they have more interest in the word ‘service’.
Click to expand...

In the USA it gets a bit annoying paying ~20% tax everytime you do something due to "service with a faux smile"
 
keith

keith

Member
Messages
638
Oneball said:
Sounds like you got an appropriate level of service.
Click to expand...
Not at all...
I spent more than thirty years working as a Forward Currency Broker i the city of London. In a trading room environment language would be colourful to say the least amongst colleagues- and on occasions this would lead to physical fights! However your customer's were absolute King's. Your career and mortgage depended on them using you as a broker to execute their business, as a result they overwhelmingly could say anything they liked, every name under the sun, you were considered their personal slave, nothing was a problem - one customer of mine- organise the service on my AM Vantage, come round to my office and touch in the stone chips on my car, and plenty more examples I won't go into. Then there was the foul abusive language, to one customer when he wanted me, he would call me 's@it', another memorable example, I was a 'fu@@ing lying cu@t, that was a customer in a bank in Germany, he went on to tell me that when his colleague who I spoke to regularly left the bank, that will be the day when all business stops, and when I go to visit them and take them to lunch h dinner etc, I wasn't allowed in the dealing room if he was there!!
But just a few examples of what I put up with. Now tell me why being arrogant is an equal measure to bad lousy service from nonothings that should never be put on the phone to a customer.
 
Oneball

Oneball

Member
Messages
11,129
keith said:
Not at all...
I spent more than thirty years working as a Forward Currency Broker i the city of London. In a trading room environment language would be colourful to say the least amongst colleagues- and on occasions this would lead to physical fights! However your customer's were absolute King's. Your career and mortgage depended on them using you as a broker to execute their business, as a result they overwhelmingly could say anything they liked, every name under the sun, you were considered their personal slave, nothing was a problem - one customer of mine- organise the service on my AM Vantage, come round to my office and touch in the stone chips on my car, and plenty more examples I won't go into. Then there was the foul abusive language, to one customer when he wanted me, he would call me 's@it', another memorable example, I was a 'fu@@ing lying cu@t, that was a customer in a bank in Germany, he went on to tell me that when his colleague who I spoke to regularly left the bank, that will be the day when all business stops, and when I go to visit them and take them to lunch h dinner etc, I wasn't allowed in the dealing room if he was there!!
But just a few examples of what I put up with. Now tell me why being arrogant is an equal measure to bad lousy service from nonothings that should never be put on the phone to a customer.
Click to expand...

“Nonothings”

Definitely sounds like you got the level of service you deserve.
 
keith

keith

Member
Messages
638
You could also substitute ’nonothing’ for ‘imbicile’ or ‘complete incompetent’.
I could continue but hopefully you get the point
I think trying to defend incompetence, whilst some would say is admirable, second rate service in the Seventies lead this country to lose its manufacturing base - the adage there’s always plenty more customers/mugs to buy second rate products. Now we have No manufacturing to speak of, and what we do have is foreign owned. Looks like we will h go o the same way now in the service sector.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.