Automated telephone services

Customer Service at Coopers of Stortford is not good.. I bought jewelled hanging basket chains from them and one of them snapped after 7 weeks. I asked for a refund as I had lost confidence in the product but they insisted on sending a replacement as I had not complained within 28 days! Would you trust the chains again after your beautiful basket was left hanging precariously? It is virtually impossible to get a reply to e-mails - an automated response arrives promising a reply within 7 days, and your e-mail then appears to disappear into a void. You have to keep chipping away at them to get any answer. I have left an honest review for the chains - I wonder if it will be printed - what do you think?

These things annoy me, they ask you to key in or say your account number, then when you speak to a real person, the first thing they ask you for is your account number,

We should all say 12345678987654321 to these machines when they ask for the account numbers, then these places will think their computers have intermittant faults!

Top tip for ANY automated phone service when given the first set of options PRESS NOTHING it will usually offer them again STILL PRESS NOTHING after 2 or 3 goes the automated exchange assumes you do not have a touch tone phone and then puts you through to a person , Works on all automated touch tone systems

nat west bank card services automated phone line ...nightmare local bank phone line not working put on hold.....online only offers more phone numbers.....another trip to bank because of their incompetance not able to avail nmyself of the services offered to me by them.....but hey do they care....

Coopers of Stortford do not deliver to the correct address, deliver half of the ordered goods, do keep the money for the whole order, change their access times on their telephone number and are not available to answer it, respond to email with a standard text that they'll sort out the problem and not to contact them via another method before four days are out. After 19 days there is till no answer. When I forward my email again, asking for a cheque reimbursing me for the undelivered goods, I again receive the same standard reply without any name attached. This company needs to be made to shape up or be prohibited from sending catalogues to the nation's letterboxes.

If you have a gripe, don't bother with the telephone...write them a letter, take a copy for yourself and send the letter by registered mail!
I have had great success with this method.

I've always found it funny how me and my colleagues (Scottish) have little trouble understanding English accents, whereas the reverse is a different case. The purpose of automated services is to make sure you get to the right department, but even at that telephones are just plain annoying. The call charges are annoying. Even if it's a local rate 0845, the amounts build.

"Quite often you end up talking to a call centre in India or Pakistan or Scotland and have to interpret an answer in broken English."

Although I understand your gripe Bob I do take exception to the fact that you have branded Scotland a developing country full of illiterate inhabitants! Our accent is not that hard to understand if you try hard enough or ask them to repeat their question! Perhaps it is you that can’t hear right?

Yep! Entirely agree! I'm a business customer who is trying to sort something out with my bank (HSBC) but as you say, you get forced to listne to pointless drivel for ten minutes pressing random buttons until you get through to a human being, who then has to divert me yet again!

If I could just call the damn branch I'd get an engaged tone or leave a message. All the problems, frustration adn bad humour would vanish into the ether.

It really, honestly makes you grumpy.

Does any one know the website thats tells you what digits to press to get through to a human, there is one, I can't find it. If you find it please email me bythepowerofra@googlemail.com ta x x

The main thing wrong with automated telephone services is the telephone itself. As a piece of technology the human interface that it uses: push buttons, a mouth piece and an ear phone all simply tells me that the technology of the telephone is 50 years or more out of date.

Why do we have to use a phone at all to contact these companies? Why do we have to pay to listen to canned music for half-an-hour?

One should be able to log a problem via the internet, and then have them call you back at their expense when they are ready.

One should be able to choose the medium in which the transaction is to take place: verbal or written, or via an internet chat service. Better still why don't they send someone round to your house in person to discuss what is bothering you?

Before calling any so-called helpline with an expensive 0870 or 0845 number I suggest that a cheaper or perhaps even free number is obtained from the useful website www.saynoto0870.com