SCAN.care@HEXUS
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Before I get into this, I must warn you this might be a long read. Essentially in the last three weeks I've spent £2200 with Scan.co.uk; 1st time being for a new gaming rig for myself (£1400) and the second was the Friday just been, this was for my girlfriend's gaming rig (£800 nearly).
First order, well... the order went relatively smooth, I paid... had to change one part I think due to stock fluctuations and that was about it, my issue with the first order was that the motherboard I bought was a Z77 board for my i5 3570k, I read on the gigabyte website that it should take my chip from an early Bios (from April) and I didn't expect any issues, you sell this board for an i5 Ivybridge chip, I think i'm entitled five and bit months later to expect it to be compatible 'out of the box'.
Sadly, this wasn't the case. The system, once fully assembled just cycle booted and without any post/display. Straight away I knew the problem, I called Scan to check whether they knew if it had been flashed to the latest bios and they simply told me that stock can sometimes take up to a few months to reach them once it's left the manufacturer. O.K...I can live with that, it's an honest explanation to the problem at hand but this is where in my opinion the service took a turn for the worst. From this point I must stress that it was not only the discourse used that caused offence for me but the tone as well in which the operator spoke to me. Obviously frustrated (but still polite I might add) I spoke to a customer service woman over the phone, she told me essentially (and almost word for word) that it was my problem and my responsibility to check compatibility before purchase. Now, I did the best I could, there was a 5 month window where it was supposed to be flashed before I purchased it, I'd read reviews of the motherboard and its performance with the ivybridge processors... it was a recommended board for my chip, what more should I reasonably be expected to do? She told me that if I wanted it rectified I would have to bring it to scan if I couldn't flash it myself (which I couldn't, I don't have spare sandybridge CPU's lying around I'm afraid). To this end, she also told me they would charge me £10 + V.A.T. This was the kicker for me, i'd just spent £1400 and received a motherboard with a BIOS that was grossly out of date, then told I would have to pay for them to sort that... seems poor customer service to me, could just be my interpretation though. Either way, I'm a student in Manchester, I don't have a car and it is a long'ish journey to Scan headquarters so I resided to going to a local PC shop to have it done, who charged me £25... was worth it to get my PC working the same day I guess.
I was annoyed, I felt like my money and my custom didn't matter to Scan, so I rang them back on the Monday and got through to a guy called Johny, lucky for Scan and myself I guess. This guy was great, he actually sympathized with the way I had been treated and told me there was no way I should of been told I would have to pay, sure I'd have to bring the board to them, but they would of done it for free and apologized. After a few minutes of speaking to me and what not, he said 'what I'm going to do is go downstairs and have a look for some CD keys for you, see if I can find a game for you and email it', wow, this is what I wanted to hear, sure enough I got an email with a Sleeping dogs key (£30 game on steam). I emailed him back and graciously thanked him. I also despite all of this had a dead pixel on my monitor (BENQ XL2420) and asked him what their policy was on it, I kind of expected it would be down to the manufacturer and it was. He gave me advice on contacting them and their policies. Out of the blue, a couple of days later he emailed me asking how that avenue went, what great customer service... he remembered me, took time out to email me and see if it was resolved with a company other than them. Fantastic, this guy literally saved my custom for his business and should be commended for turning my experience around with them on its head.
Now, onto the second problem (damn this is a long post, sorry). I should of mentioned that the delivery in my first order was exceptional, first class in that instance... given a time window through email and they stuck to it, everything was fine... nothing damaged and the driver was polite. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for this time. It was my partners Birthday on the Saturday, so I ordered early hours of the Friday morning a bunch of components to build her a gaming PC, a good solid budget build which could max BF3, her favorite game. It wasn't 'cheap' by any means and had an i5 3570K, SSD drive, 7870 gpu etc. She was excited to say the least, there were a few problems on the day I ordered, one of which, admittedly was mine; I ordered an i5 2500k assuming it would be decently cheaper (knowing there isn't much performance difference) only to look and see it was a matter of a few quid. I rang them and this was sorted quickly, good service, however a lot of things later transpired to be out of stock, there was a bit of messing around but we got a build together again in the end and all done politely and quickly. The problems came with the morning of delivery, I live in student flats and my damn doorbell broke, it would be difficult to know if they were here or not. So I went to DPD's website and there literally was not one number that ended in human contact to see if I could get the delivery driver to phone my home phone when he was here. So I google'd 'Manchester DPD depot' and found it was in Irlam and got the number, finally after 20 minutes of ringing someone answered, who by the way could barely speak English. They took my home phone number and assured me the driver would contact me. Sure enough, he did. I went downstairs and there were two people, one older guy and another who looked about 20. He presented to me one parcel, my ASUS monitor, obviously I was confused and questioned him about it and said there were two parcels, where's the other? He arrogantly insisted I only ordered one and asked me to sign, after arguing with him for a few minutes and him refusing to check the truck, contact the depot or look at my order I had to accept the parcel or refuse it, so I accepted it. My girlfriend was next to me and was noticeably upset, wouldn't we all be? It was her birthday and this company had delivered a monitor without a PC.
Straight away I contacted Scan, I have to admit I was angry/polite on the phone if that makes sense. Three weeks and problems with both orders, at this point I didn't know whether it was DPD's mistake or Scans and I got through to possibly the best person I could of asked for in their delivery customer service option, a lady called Nisha. I explained everything, that it hadn't turned up, it was my girlfriend's birthday and I couldn't even give her this (something of some significance given I'm a student, limited monetary resources obviously, this meant a lot to both of us). She quickly apologized and said she will contact them and try track it down, at this point I was pretty insistent that something had to be done today, not easy given it was a Saturday. She went off and contacted them, to no real end. When she called me back she forwarded a copy of her phone call with DPD as well as explained it to me, I guess to prove to me she was trying and it was DPD that were doing nothing, essentially they kept telling Nisha that my other package was in transit, when she asked 'where?' they would just repeat it's in transit, basically they didn't know I think. I appealed to her, saying is there anything I can do... I will travel to the DPD depot, I'll even go to Scan in Bolton if I have to (couple of hour round trip for me in student land using the bus and then the train - all while carrying boxes). She said don't worry, this isn't fair we'll sort something. I was frustrated given that I almost wasn't going to use them again after my last problems, now £2200 later and there is another issue (admittedly not their fault, but they do choose to use DPD so some responsibility has to be taken). Despite the fact they had £670 remaining goods wandering around somewhere with DPD, they issued me all new parts to build the order again, some were out of stock so they replaced the RAM to an upgrade for free, they also upgraded the case from the NZXT Lesa to a Corsair 300R Carbide, a very nice upgrade AND refunded my delivery charges. On top of that, Nisha offered to come meet me at the train station and show me to Scan AND go on the train back to Piccadilly in Manchester with me to help as she was going there anyway, still... incredibly kind.
So, I had problems the first time, they were annoying but were rectified quickly and I am very grateful to him, he saved my custom with Scan. The second time, fair play - it wasn't really Scans fault, sure... they choose to use DPD and the last time they were good, but to me there is no excuse for misplacing that much equipment, it shouldn't happen. DPD need to up their game, also if they offer a Saturday service, they should make sure they can be contacted easily, as a customer it shouldn't be a mission to find out where your stuff is. Finally, a big thank you to Nisha from both myself and my girlfriend. She had three days off for her birthday and enjoy her present from me and we thought two days would be wasted as well as the frustration of not having my gift to give her on her birthday. You really went above and beyond what I could ever expect from a business, I've told some friends and they were shocked by just how far you went out of your way to help me, it's easy to say 'I'm sorry, you'll just have to wait until Monday for delivery', but you did everything you could and essentially saved my partners birthday, let's face it... who wouldn't look forward to a great gaming PC? So yer, despite one mishap the first time I ordered, since then I haven't experience a company like this, I know this was a damn long-read but I felt so compelled to write this, yer they didn't want to lose my business, I spent a lot but she genuinely felt bad for my predicament and wanted my partner to enjoy her birthday, a special day and thanks to her... it really was.
So, thanks Johny and Nisha - no idea if you'll see this message but I'm really grateful to you both for each incident. To anyone who may be wondering whether to use them as a company, yes... do it, I don't know a delivery service that is perfect, I feel like you kind of take your chance with them all and to be fair the first time they were great and the second at least they were on time. But scan as a company offered me the best customer service I've ever experienced in my 25 years, I used to be a croupier in a Casino as well, so I know a fair bit about the impact it can make. Cheer guys!
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Originally Posted by Carlh
