Companies over here could learn alot from this site

[Knoxville]

hottopic.com

Tried to order a few things from there on my dads credit card on friday but the card was declined, went onto the live help section and asked what could be wrong, straight off the guy I spoke to asked if he wanted me to phone him and talk me through entering all the details (I knew i'd entered them fine but i humored him)

Couldn't use the house phone at the time as my mom was sorting everything out with her work having just got back off they're holiday on thursday. The guy asked me if I had a mobile he could phone gave him my number fully expecting to get a reply saying I was in the uk so the call would be too expensive. 20 minutes later my mobile starts ringing, he then proceeded to talk me through an order and watch it be declined online and then spent the next 20 minutes taking my order over the phone and double checking all the info.

Now I don't know the exact rates but that call must've been astronomical cost wise, but not a complaint from him at any point never once did he try and hurry things along it was all done in a friendly way.

Now why is it that companies in the u.s value they're customers that much and it takes ebuyer a week to despatch an e-note, It takes moses himself to get through to ocuk and get what you want done etc. All in all the experience has left me very un-impressed with customer service in general in this country.

btw I know this may well seem like a pointless rant to some but I was thinking about it earlier and I just can't get my head round it.

[Richie]

From a CS side of things - On the whole customers are fine but you get some (more than you' think) that demand everything and more and basically treat the customer services agents like their personal slave.

Yes they are there to provide support but they are NOT paid to be someons verbal punchbag so, after a couple of years of this, your enthusiasm to be too helpful tends to wane.

[GreenPiggy]

*Some* companies in this country have excellent customer service.
The Cooling Shop and CPUCity spring to mind

[MD]

Phone custs to you would be prohibitive at the rates you pay, but businesses pay much lower rates, even more so using VOIP and business networks mean that the costs are no more than a local call.

tbh, businesses don't generally think about the cost of calls, its just classed as a expense the company has to bear.

But I do agree with you, why can;t more british companies be like that.

m@

[scottyman]

I think it's a cultural thing - the company culture in the US means - "the customer is always right... but, when when he's being offensive - cut him off"

with some notable exceptions, I think the UK will never understand this.
I suppose it depends on who you get through to, but iwoot.com are very good, scan have been very good (at times) - I called up to correct an order as couldn't find out how to do it online, was all processed in minutes!

virgin airlines US are atrocious, and UK is far and away better - the US just couldn't understand that their own phone system routed after hours calls through to their call center. shocking - almost didn't get the flights we wanted for a holiday next year. Amusingly, Air New Zealand (trying to book airmiles flights on virgin - same holiday as above) very helpful - a little clueless. when I pointed out that if they weren't sure what to do - and asked to speak to a supervisor... they said call back after 8pm, and get routed through to NZ, where they know what's going on. perfect, all sorted in minutes.

wolverine (who are the uk company that does merrell and cats etc) are awful - I wanted to work out how to make a formal complaint against them for being such ******* - just completely offensive. all I wanted was to find a uk reseller who sold merrells in a size 13 US (12 1/2 UK) I was told "don't be stupid - why would we tell you that? - we don't make them in those sizes. never will" then hung up.

never got the chance to say... when I fly to new zealand, australia, us, south africa (which is in their distribution umbrella) I can get them. if not in store, then on order. but can I get them over here? no chance. called merrell us to complain - said that they sell virtually none in the UK, as they have no supplier agreements, and they're a seperate company.

/whinge off.

there are some companies which are us so frustrating to deal with, and should be whacked with a great big customer service stick!

[steve threlfall]

*Some* companies in this country have excellent customer service.
The Cooling Shop and CPUCity spring to mind

Very true. Good experiences with both of those.

It does tend to be smaller companys with the best customer service. Thats good to hear though dude- leaves you with a great impression of them and your more liely to deal again

[TiG]

Customer service that you get is all dependant on the person you get. Sure companies policies can help but all too often if you get someone on a good day you get a good service on a bad day its crap.

Such is life...

TiG

[Iain]

http://users.hexus.net/companies_list.php

Use it

[Steve]

Oooh, oooh, I work in customer services! Not in sales though.

I must say, we will ring people back, we try our best for people, but sometimes they forget that it's not in my interest to give myself a hard time by not giving them what they want...

[Knoxville]

From a CS side of things - On the whole customers are fine but you get some (more than you' think) that demand everything and more and basically treat the customer services agents like their personal slave.

Yes they are there to provide support but they are NOT paid to be someons verbal punchbag so, after a couple of years of this, your enthusiasm to be too helpful tends to wane.

Having worked on customer services a few times I can understand that, it gets annoying when a customer comes in and expects the world to fall at their feet because THEY used a paper towel with a lovely pretty pattern printed on and then expected the cleaner design specifically to remove stubborn stains such as ink not to pull the ink off the paper and smudge it all over their lovely cream sofa.

That and the fact that most of the women on customer services at work were fhm high street honey material has left me being very nice to customer services staff in general.

[Galant]

Hot Topic? You could always just ask me. I can go down the road, buy whatever it is, and send it.

But then I do live here.



Oh, and yes, this is the land of customer service. They fill your shopping bags for you at 'grocery stores' (ASDA equivalents and smaller ones). You tend to be able to get free re-fills on soft drinks at most restaurants. They'll cook anything just about any way you can imagine it.

Bu then, everyone drives everywhere here. Even if it's a 1min walk down the road. Which is why a lot of people a fat here. The food is cheaper, a lot of it is junk, the portions are much larger, and people don't get enough exercise. But now I'm off the point.

[Knoxville]

Could've told me that earlier, git

[Galant]

Sorry.

Here, take a look at the directories:

http://www.tucsonmall.com/html/index.asp

http://www.parkplacemall.com/html/

[dkmech]

I needed to change an order for some steel that i needed at work - called the company (McReadys) and asked if i could have a slightly thicker steel plate on one of the items - they said no problem and as far as i am aware haven't charged anything extra. I was very pleased as i didn't want to have to pay 60 quid for an extra chunk of steel.
When i had problems with my adsl BT were very nice (if a bit useless in solving the problem) and did try to help.
As for ebuyer enotes - i can see why it can take them a while, it is hard to know how many they get, but i imaging it will be a decent amount.