Do companies just generally suck now?

[Saracen]

Yeah, but finlay, that's not merely "lousy" service. It's atrocious, truly abysmal, disgraceful lack of even the most basic minimum of service.

[george1979]

I've done various customer service jobs over the years and I'd agree with some that there does seem to be an increasing trend towards 'I'm the customer - you will give me what I want regardless'. One of my jobs is working in customer relations for a mobile network (not telling which, I'll never hear the end of it lol) so I often have to listen to people call up, and end up speaking to me, about receiving a larger than normal bill and petulantly declare they won't pay it then demand that I waive the extra charges - for services they used! Honestly, the thought of calling a company and saying 'I know I used that but I'm not paying for it' had never in my life even crossed my mind! The shamelessness of some people really is a sight to behold.
And we get hundreds of these requests a week.

A fella was recently escalated to me as his Iphone was faulty and it needed repaired. It was out of its 12 month warranty but we agreed to cover the repairs - he just had to take it to apple and then send us the receipt for a refund. He refused as he said he was just back from holiday and didn't have the cash so demanded that we pay up front for it! I'm thinking 'we're agreeing to pay for the repairs, how is it our fault or problem that you're just back from holiday?'.

Another was a guy who had to send his phone for repair and wanted a 'loan' phone. Offered to send him a cheap feature phone (free) but that wasn't good enough as he needs navigation. Fine - 'how about a galaxy fame? Again free, just send it back when you're phone is fixed'. 'I don't like Samsung' was his response - 'Go buy another bloody phone yourself then' was my first thought

The flip side of this coin is when you get some poor person who has done everything possible to help themselves and is still getting nowhere. Like a lady who was unable to get a signal at home for months on an Iphone 4 but her daughters Iphone 4S was fine. She'd been given a signal booster, done everything asked of her on numerous calls over 2 months and then went and bought a new Iphone 4 from an Apple store only to get the same fault. In that instance I sent her an Iphone 4S for free as it was the only thing left I could think to try and I felt she deserved it after all that. Thankfully it worked cos I was out of ideas after that!

There are plenty of companies who are trying to provide a good service but too many of them end up in a race to the bottom to improve their margins and use terrible outsourcers such as Capita. The company I work for now is bringing a lot of work back from these companies for this very reason and the life insurance firm I used to work for did the same about two years ago. I think a lot of them are realising that it's a false economy as it will cost them in terms of customer retention and ultimately damages their brand.

One sure fire way to tell if a company is on a downward spiral is when they start outsourcing customer facing roles (regardless of whether is offshore or UK based).

[sammyc]

Strop of the day:

In one week of online book buying, I have had:

Order from alibris cancelled, item not available as listed

Order from independent online shop, ditto.

Order from greenmetropolis (listing and selling for charity if you please), cancelled.

Order from amazon uk third party cancelled, ditto

Order from amazon us, ditto

Order from amazon uk 'fulfilled by amazon' order sent out with two completely incorrect items


In a week? Oh come on.

The thing is, you know all amazon will do is offer you a refund, and the idea that they should actually go and find where the error occurred and fix it is laughable.. ('sorry, I can see the book you actually ordered on that shelf over there behind me in the small manageably-sized stockroom, I'll just sort that for you' ha ha) and therefore we just accept it. Oh, your operation is far too big and disconnected for me to expect any sort of proper redress, no, no, that's fine, I quite see.

What made it worse is that I tracked one of the items down to the publisher - a magazine - very nice website, with all back-copies neatly labelled buy now or out of stock. What do you get when you click those? Re-routed to amazon. Have amazon actually got the half of the issues listed as available? Of course not. Does the email link to the publisher to tell them so, actually work? OF COURSE NOT.

[Bingomaster]

Do you know of any good web hosting companies?
Im looking for a web hosting company to host my business website. Id like to conduct some e-commerce and also to be able to set up a content management system on my site. Do you know of any good web hosting companies that could accomodate someone with needing these features?

[RobbieRoy]

When Jeff Bezos started Amazon in his garage his mission statement said something along the lines of "any customer will get fantastic service", and so the business succeeded. Although I don't use Amazon now for ethical reasons, when I did in the past I was always impressed with them.

But generally, and returning to the title of the thread, British companies do IMHO tend to give customer service a low priority and take customers for granted (Tesco and the wider food industry perhaps being a good example). And good customer service is not the same as lowest price, highest quality or quickest delivery. It's about treating customers as human beings, managing expectations, communicating clearly and as far as possible delivering what was purchased - be it a widget, a cup of coffee or a massage.

That said, the likes of Trip Adviser also allow the public to be unreasonable - but often in response to poor customer service!

[legitfromtheman]

It is sad when we see good service as a bonus when shopping - however it certainly does influence me as regards repeat custom.

[Shahman]

Working in a retail environment face to face on a commission driven job the above comment is quite correct their really is no loyalty from the customers and the generally consensus is their entitled to everything. Us - "I'm sorry Sir/Madam but the truck has overturned in bad weather luckily the driver and hand were unhurt but we will need to re-schedule your delivery" Customer - "This isn't good enough we want compensation I've had to take time off work i want that money back and your going to give me it". I spend a lot of time with my customers making sure they get the correct product that fits their needs and requirements then they walk out and buy it online as "Its Easier", annoys me no end.

I feel your pain, I left retail but still in a customer facing role and most people think they are entitled to something which gets on my nerves.

[sammyc]

It's about treating customers as human beings, managing expectations, communicating clearly and as far as possible delivering what was purchased

Ah, communicating. I've just had 3 attempts at letting a seller know I've made 2 separate orders just a little while apart (same day) and would they like to look out for & combine them to save them postage? Them, not me.

First reply back just pointed out that they couldn't combine postage charges for me, and it took the next 2 emails (should've known better) before I realised they weren't just misreading my emails, they weren't reading them AT ALL - were just picking the word shipping and parrot-ing a stock reply back. 'Very poor, very poor indeed...'
Ok they're a biggish seller & don't want me saving them 5 bucks (I'll never learn ) but reading the email first time would have been nice, so much if I'd had a complicated question.

In the case of some of my failed book purchases, that was owing to sellers listing the same item all over the place, which is poor practice if you ask me. Abebooks' seller rating, which I never knew til lately, is based solely on % of orders actually fulfilled..

[shakerist]

Well ive had a delightful experience at Pc World just now, basically, I missed out on a logitech G27 deal by half an hour.
Reserved G27 @ 149.99 11:24pm 2nd December, now they state that your order will be ready within the next hour and will be held till the end of the next working day. So I thought I would be able to collect today as I was working yesterday till 7am-9pm and they close at 8pm because I cant actually collect the order within an hour and so theyd prep the item when they come in for work, hold it from then till the end of todays working day.

So I go in, they tell me that my reservation expired and that the product went up by £50 (It was still 149.99 as I told my friend about it who also reserved one and he collected it today). So the lovely lady explained to me that since I ordered on the 2nd that is expired yesterday, there system only holds it for "24 hours", and I asked if I had ordered it at 12am would I have been able to collect it today, she said yeah, to which I replied but its been 44 hours since 12am Wednesday, she kept saying 24 and system over again, called "manager " who I dont think was actually a manager just probably a more experienced colleague, who said the same thing.

Then the real manager came, who just said the same thing again. He basically says system knows all, but im not talking with a system im talking with a human being, Im not saying its my right or entitlement to have the G27 and I can see the point they are making, im not even that fussed it was an impulse buy, its just that Im a temp at John Lewis and if a customer with the same problem came to me, I would have been able to solve it myself without having to even get the manager involved, common sense and empathy within limits to keep customer happy is what they push in the training at John Lewis and its just a little bit of understanding I was looking for from the guys at pcworld today

On one occasion a elderly customer said as I helped him to his car with a TV he purchased "This is why I shop at John Lewis they wouldnt have helped me out to the car at Currys" then I had thought nah they would have, they are human too. Now im not so sure

Thoughts? Was I asking for too much?