Argggghhhh: UK Customer Service sucks!

[asmielia]

Hi there,
I moved to the UK from Canada back in September and I have come to realize something: Customer Service here sucks big time.

At first, I didn't want to generalize cause I figured it was just one or two companies, but as time has gone on, I've realized it's always bad, it's just a question of how bad it is. For some reason, people just don't give a **** what your problem is, even if it is their personal fault. They couldn't care less. I always try to be polite but it can be so hard to keep calm when someone is a total idiot and can't do a simple task that defines their very job. The thing that pisses me off the most is that no matter how badly they or their company has screwed up, they NEVER EVER apologize. I honestly don't care if they personally hate me, but the companies should be telling their employees to apologize for mistakes. The apology comes from the company, not from the individual. But yet, I never receive any apologies for screw ups, and boy, have there been a lot of screw ups.

I don't want to go into too many details about what's gone wrong, because hey, mistakes happen everywhere. But what defines good customer service is realizing you've made a mistake, apologizing for it, and then attempting to rectify the situation. All three of those have been sorely lacking in any encounter I've had with company employees. After all, I'm offering my hard earned money in exchange for these services, so the least they could do is pretend to be grateful and provide me with the service I deserve.

In a particular order of hatred (first being most hated), these are some companies I have had the distinct displeasure of dealing with: NTL, Tekheads.co.uk, Parcel Force, City Link, DHL, Overclockers.co.uk.

To all Brits: Don't settle for mediocrity, Customer Service can be a hell of a lot better. I also know it can be a hell of a lot worse though, Italy probably has the worst customer service in the history of the universe.

That is all,
Adrian

P.S. If anyone knows of any computer e-tailers in the UK with oustanding customer service (especially dealing with RMAs), I'd love to hear from you. I've seen the rankings here on Hexus and I honestly can't believe Tekheads has such a high rating (4.3/5.0) after the way I've been treated.

[BUFF]

Originally Posted by asmielia

P.S. If anyone knows of any computer e-tailers in the UK with oustanding customer service (especially dealing with RMAs), I'd love to hear from you.

Kustom but you will pay a little more & have a little less choice.

[malfunction]

Yes - Kustom are said to be good and I found them to be excellent on the only order I've placed with them so far.

[Spunkey]

I think you've just picked about the worst companies you could for customer service
I've never had a beef with City Link though, but my dealings with them are normally on the level of *hand over delivery slip* wait 2 minutes whilst Frank Spencer clangs his way around warehouse *walk out door with parcel*.

NTL are horrific for customer service. When i moved into my house we kept getting bills for the bloke who lived there before. For about a year it carried on, and on. We sent the letters back with 'not at this address'. We sat on the phone waiting for hours to tell them he didnt live there anymore - to which we were told only he can change his account details, if you can get him to ring us.. blah blah.
Finally we got a red letter for it, threatening bailiffs would be coming round, and through the letter window we could finally see the amount... £2.57. They must have pissed away twenty times that in paper and man hours with the amount of letters they sent us in order to get paid their £2.57.
Anyway as you can imagine I wasnt best pleased with having a red letter sent to my address which had nothing to do with me. It wasn't until i spoke to one of the manager monkeys and threatened legal action should i find that this letter has dropped my credit rating. He suddenly became very apologetic and the letters stopped. I cancelled my NTL account the next day.

Basically NTL treat you like scum.

[tiggerai]

Aria come highly recommended in my books too. along with komplett.

[malfunction]

Aye. I have never had a problem with Komplett either and have used them for loads of personal and work orders. I personally have had some problems with Scan in the past but both Scan and Komplett have support forums here and deserve credit and recognition for having the balls to accept customer queries and complaints in a public manner.

[shiato storm]

yup, scan have done me well in the recent past, having on-line presence here is a massive boost no doubt, 'cause at the end of the day if it looks like a company doesn't give a damn then no one's going to go there...

[asmielia]

Wow, talk about quick replies. Do you guys live on this forum

I can't believe what's happened since I wrote that post just a few minutes ago. After threatening to never do business with Tekheads again unless they shipped me a replacement motherboard by the end of day today, they actually pulled it together and got it out the door by 4:30. Looks like the computer gods are on my side for once. I'm still not too happy with them, but for once in these 5 weeks I've been dealing with this bullsh*t, they came through in the crunch.

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, I do admire that Scan and Komplett have forums here. I laugh everytime I'm on the overclockers.co.uk forums and see Gibbo posting about how great the company is for every reason, meanwhile they have atrocious ratings all over the net for terrible customer service.

Adrian

[jimborae]

Overclock.co.uk, again you pay a bit more but there service, including rma's, is fantastic, as is Komplett.

Odd to hear about Tekheads, as I've always had really good customer care from them, including one rma.

But yes, it's sad to say that we Brits are right royally shafted when it comes to customer service.

[Stoo]

I've used tekheads quite a lot in the past and never had any problems at all, everything has always been done very rapidly..

I guess it's just the luck of the draw..

[Daymonkey]

although some people dont like them, ive found Microdirect to be very good, ordered then 20 minutes later it was sent, and was here the next morning. Komplett also are very good never had any problems what so ever.

[Kumagoro]

This country is run with a chav mentality, most of the time. After living abroad for a year
I have come to see what this country is... a big turd. I just dont ever see it changing
much because most of us are cheap and wont pay for something of quality.

Kustompcs.co.uk did me proud when my case from them got smashed up by city link.
Yay to them.

[asmielia]

I think it's easy for a company to have good service when you order, but it's when you have to RMA something that you really find out their character.

My complaints about Tekheads are definitely very biased, because nothing has gone right with my order since I placed it 5 weeks ago, and a lot of the problems aren't Tekheads' fault. Out of 3 parts (motherboard, CPU, video card), 2 were defective. So right there I had to spend £37 in shipping just to get the parts back to them. Then when I was finally hoping to get my system working again this week, City Link lost my package. That's where my complaints about City Link come in. Calling them up and getting proper information was like pulling teeth. It took them 2 days just to figure out that something had gone wrong and that they'd lost the package.

Anyway, I do have legitimate complaints about Tekheads. First of all, I don't think I got what you'd call quick service. Each RMA took them 1 week to deal with, from the time they received it to the time they said it was faulty and my replacement was shipped. So total time without the hardware was more like a week and a half for each one. Secondly, they don't provide any information about anything. Their "Returns" section on the website sure looks useful, but it's never updated with any information and they never email anything either. When I email them, even if I write several paragraphs of complaints, I always get a one sentence answer with no apology and barely an explanation.

I've never been treated rudely, just ignored a lot which is quite a bit more annoying. I get the feeling that Tekheads used to be really good, but they've just expanded too much and not hired on enough extra staff to compensate. The result is below average service and lack of caring on behalf of the employees.

Adrian

[yamangman]

overclock.co.uk are wonderful, basically you can email them for any slightly benign reason and their response is curteous and friendly, and they'll give you free shipping.

[Kumagoro]

When they get the stuff back which is faulty, and test thats its faulty they do give you
your money back for return delivery right?

Kustom just sent city link to pick it up and i didnt pay a thing.

[Skii]

Parcelforce need to be destroyed.

Destroyed I tell you.