What has happened to Scan Customer Service

[FreeFrank]

My two brothers and I have used you for several years and until now have been impressed with your service. Your prices and range of goods are unbeatable on the Internet. However it seems that with your success and expansion that your service has suffered.

Recently my brother had to RMA an item which you quickly tested, found faulty and promised to send a replacement. However it took two weeks and three phonecalls for a replacement to be sent (and even then Citylink went to the wrong address prompting more calls, waiting and sorting out).

On Tuesday I ordered nearly £1000 of goods. Got the order received email quickly and the the payment authorisation was confirmed after a call to the credit card company. You handled this quickly and efficiently.

Since then there has been no progress, that is two days. I have sent an email this evening and got a quick reply (thank you) saying that the order has been marked urgent but the goods can't be dispatched now until tomorrow. Thanks Neil for the quick reply and the promise to check things through the system.

I have replied saying that I wanted the goods for the weekend, had picked items that were in stock, would be out on Monday and was dissappointed with the service. I have suggested that you now deliver to me on Saturday and absorb this extra cost and give me Today Only discounts on the items in my list that have had these over the last two days.

This would restore my faith in your customer service. If you can't do this then it is best that you cancel the order and I do my business elsewhere.

After previous good experiences I am so dissappointed that you have let me and my brother down in recent weeks.

We build snd set up computers and networks for friends, neighbours and family. When you let us down, we let them down.

What is going on?

[DavidM]

Unfortunatelty I can't look into this now for you, but if you can please PM me your invoice details, i'll check into this first thing and see what can be done to sort it out for you.

[FreeFrank]

Sorry I can't PM you, just tried as you have exceeded you PM quota. Please clear some space at Hexus, thanks.

[DavidM]

Try again please

[DavidM]

I've looked into this, and one of my colleagues is already dealing with this for you.

You should recieve contact from them shortly.

[robbiefra]

I am the brother of the first poster and can confirm that despite a replacement for the faulty item being in stock (124 at one time) it took scan 12 days before they could be bothered to send one out. The item being a D-Link ADSL modem and router.

Fortunately on the day City Link were to deliver I logged into my Scan account and discovered that the delivery address had beem carded. When I checked with the person who was to receive the goods and they said no card had been left, I realised that City Link had gone to the wrong house. If I had not done this City Link would have no doubt tried again next day and then sent it back to Scan who no doubt would have tried to stiff me with a redelivery charge.

It is a shame that it took two phone calls to Scan before I could get a phone number for City Link so that I could sort out where it should be delivered. When talking to City Link I had to describe in detail what the front door of the delivery address looked like. What a farce!!

Scan slammed the phone down on me first time claiming I had used "abusive language". All I did was explain forcefully what I thought of them and their crap service. I did not swear as later claimed in an email to me. The operative kept saying I should now ring City Link and use the number on the card, but as the card was in the door of the 'wrong' house, how I was suppose to do this I don't know. Perhaps I should of gone around my village, guessed which house City Link had chosen at random, and done a bit of breaking and entry.

It took a second phone call and being very polite in order to be told the City Link phone number.

The next stage is Scan's inadequate reply to my complaint email in which Scan employee Philip Payseno said: "...however I would not class 12days as a excessive amount of time.."

Well Philip I disagree as the person I was fitting this for has had to pay for nearly a whole month's broadband (£18 worth) without being able to receive it as you were so slow sending a new modem. The person who stayed in to receive the goods had to waste two mornings waiting for delivery. In Philip's email there was no mention of me being paid any compensation for this shabby service.

This is at odds with what my brother has received which was a Today discount on two items he originally paid a higher price on and Saturday deliver paid for by Scan.

I can only assume that as a high earner with a different coloured credit card (platinum) to the rest of us who put in a large order he was worthy of better treatment than us ordinary people.

I would like to know what others think of Scan's service and whether they have had to wait 12 days or more for replacement goods.

[Steve A]

Robbiefra

First of all i have no knowledge of the converstion you had with phil, however i would like to point out the fact that it is not our fault if citilink delivered to the wrong address, we have no control of orders once they have left warehouse. All i can do is appologise for the problems you have had, although in our defence we do have 28 days to issue a refund/replacement so we havent actually done anything wrong, i would admit however our RMA's dont usually take that long.

Also im sorry but the remark you made about the "higher earner" is absolutely unjust and unfair, this is not how we do busniess at all, as many of our customers will confirm there is no difference in how we treat customers weather they spend £10 or £10,000, and am a little dissapointed that you would think that, we take a lot of pride on the relationship we have with our customers, and although we are not nieve enough to think that we can please 100% of people 100% of the time we still give it a bloody good go, goodwil gestures such as saturday upgrades are always down to circumstances of any particular situation ie if someone has been waiting a week for delivery and it becomes avalible on a friday then we will try upgrading to a saturday delivery if possable, but this would be the case regardless of much you have spent. i just hope we havent broken the relationship with you beyond repair, as i said RMA's dont usually take that long and was a one off, so please accept our appolgies and hopefully next time we can put this right....


Regards

[FreeFrank]

As promised by Neil my boxes arrived this morning. So Scan your customer service is now redeemed in my eyes. Thank you all for sorting this out and arranging the Saturday delivery. The new build begins tomorrow.

By the way I think that it is great that Scan have a public forum where you can ask questions and raise issues. I can not think of many companies that would be brave enough to do this or who would take the time to read and respond via such a forum.

My brother and I have liked using you because so far we have had good order processing and you have the best range and prices on the Internet in the UK. In fact he is developing a nice sideline fixing PCs and doing home networks in his local area; his nearest retailer is one outlet of a major chain about an hour away by car. People have started to come to him because of his technical knowledge and the fact that via Scan he can get stuff cheaper than the major outlet. Hence his disappointment over the router; you handled the RMA and testing well but not the sending of a replacement which meant that he let one of his new customers down.

Again thank you for doing as promised and getting all the goods to me for the weekend.

[wesleyaldred]

I would just like to add aswell that Scan staff moderate this public forum, most of us do this of our own choice and in our own time, how many other companies do you see who's staff are happy to assist this way even in the evenings and on weekends?

Whilst these comments are rare they are good though, it makes us want to do better, it means we get the chance to see were things are going wrong and to try to put it right for the future.

As said before 12 days is slightly longer than usual for a turnaround at the moment and we do aim to turnaround much quicker than this, however, things do go wrong and it's not always possible.

It's hard to please everyone all of the time and occasionally things will go wrong, we're not to ashamed to put our hands up and say sorry, this time we messed up, but please don't let that put you off Scan, we will try harder next time and we do ask for the opportunity to redeem ourselves.

CityLink are an independant company again in this instance they have also made a mistake, but again this is very rare for City Link there success rates for delivering goods correctly, safely and first time is one of the best in the market and the reason why we stick with them, but just like everyone they will never be 100%.

Cheers for reading


Wesley
Operations Manager
Scan Computers

[Richdog]

I have just had a complete palaver with Scan customer service, i'm disgusted. I mistakenly ordered a Skt 940 CPU 2 weeks ago and cancelled via phoning the call-centre within 15 minutes. As with any respectable call-centre worker, the ever-so-chirpy girl I spoke to didn't actually cancel it and I received an email saying it was being picked. Yay! So I called back again and this time was told it was definately cancelled. However, I was unwittingly charged and received the CPU the a day or so after, which I sent straight back.

Phoned again to ask what was going on and was told seeing as the first girl hadn't cancelled the order that it had been picked and sent before the second girl had chance to cancel it. I NEEDED the refund and was told that it would be with me in a week, likely a few days. After almost a week and no refund I phoned again to talk to a slightly higher ranked woman called Roxanne I think who told me that there was no refund before 10 days usually, and the person on the phone CAN'T have told me a few days because that was not company policy. So i'm a liar now eh? My fault, at 25 years old my hearing isn't what it used to be.

Having worked in a BT call-centre in days of yore I know exactly what working in a call-centre is like, and how after months of working in a building where you spend all day getting grief you will say anything to get rid of a customer

Almost two weeks have passed and I DESPERATELY need the money, DESPERATELY.

I phoned this morning to be told by anotgher chirpy call-centre monkey that "We're sorry but we have just implemented a new payment sceheme and there have been some delays blah blah blah I will action it now for you". When I asked why they couldn't have done that a few days ago she replied: "Umm, not sure really, seems your was put back in the queue a bit". Well fantastic, thanks for notifying me. I am in dire need of the cash and was told I would receive it "in the next few days" when I need it tommorrow. I shall have to try and get my girlfriend to scrape up £120 for me somehow.

You can often get the measure of a company not from the prices or sales, but from the after-sales support and the way they deal with mistakes and errors in the most painless way possible... and in this case it was severely lacking.

So frustrating... you just feel so helpless and out of control in these situations.

[Steve A]

Richdog

Please PM yourinvoice number i will get this sorted for you "NOW"..

Appologies for this mixup.

Regards

[Richdog]

Hi Steve,

I've been told that is has now been actioned, and that I should get the refund in the next few days and it would be impossible to get a refund NOW?

Anyway, invoice number is 0EXXXXXX.

I'm not in an irate or dofficult mood steve so don't get that impression, merely frustrated. there's no point getting mad with anyone, it wouldn't change anything. If 3-4 days is the best I can get then i'll just live with it.

[Steve A]

Richdog

I understand that you would be frustrated, but i will chase this up and make sure it is being delt with anyway.

PS sorry just edited you post to remove your invoice number .

Regards

Feel free to pm me if you have any problems

[Richdog]

Thanks.

[Steve A]

Ok

This has deffinatly been processed now and he refund should be on the card in the next few days.

Appologies for the delay my friend...

Regards

[Richdog]

No problem Steve, thanks for the enquiry I appreciate it.