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Poor customer service in the UK

I purchased some lights over 12 days ago from a well known retailer and still haven't had a delivery.  I have contacted their customer services department on 3 separate occasions and as yet have had no response.  This company says 'They offer speedy delivery and excellent customer service' another company all mouth and nothing to back it up.  I would advise customers to source their goods elsewhere.  Steve

Customer Services in BIG shops is extremely poor.  My son and I spent a day last week looking to replace a TV.  First point of call was Cash Generator where the young, rude and unhelpful staff attempted to sell us a TV that was not working and another that had no remote control even though it was advertised as having one!  When we complained to the manager, he blamed both faults on the customer bringing in faulty items and staff loosing things!  Next we went to PC World where we found a perfect 32" TV at the right price.  But the shop refused to sell it to us because a fictitious customer had reportedly bought it!  Strange, because it had the same name of a boy who had sold me a dodgy netbook overleaf on the display ticket.  It was on shop floor being displayed for sale yet he had reserved it!  So we left and went to Comet where we bought a 22" TV, which only worked for 3 days and as I write this TV is packed in its boxed waiting for an engineer to say it is faulty before a refund is given!  That is more time off work for that plus more costly phone calls to Call service centres with Comet having the worst, unsympathetic, uncaring, not-customer focused, unapologetic, sarcastic I've ever dealt with.  Now I have a TV, bought for Christmas with very little chance of us getting a refund BEFORE then so we can go get another one.  The whole thing is a complete, unacceptable joke and we are not laughing!  Anon

In this country if you book a holiday abroard especially a cruise, if for any reason it goes wrong such as flight cancellation be prepared for the following.  It's the UK, so we don't return calls.  It's not our fault but hang on, I'll just pass you on to someone else who doesn't give a damn either.  Be prepared to be on hold for an hour only to be cut off.  What about another flight you may ask?  No can do, youll just have to miss your boat and contact us another date try sometime after Xmas.  What about my money and all the extras ive paid for?  No chance im afraid you lost that.  What about the expense ive incured in petrol driving four hours and back from the airport, and what about the hotel I stayed in and the loss of two weeks parking?  What about the money I paid for the cat to stay 2 weeks at a cattery?  Why is no one from the company I booked with, willing to SPEAK TO ME??  Why did they send us home when there were other flights?  Why do they always answer the phone to take your money but never to resolve an issue?  Why do they answer the phone in America but not in the UK.  We need to be a lot more higher in our expectations and ask who is sorting out what, when it goes wrong.  Customer service in the UK sucks.  Blue Nose

Poor customer service in the UK? I got an outward bound sales call from Talk Talk.  I'm already a long standing existing customer.  I was offered a new package which made a lot of sense and I went with.  Great.  I was then asked to hold while the call was transfered to a manager who would confirm my order.  (I hadn't ordered anything, but I suppose thats just being picky!).  I then speak to a 'manager' who then proceeds to read out a script repeating everything that I have just been through and welcoming me to Talk Talk as a new customer.  I explain that I am an exitingcustomer and don't need to go through this.  "But I have to read this script" she says.  It was so irritating, irrelevant and a waste of my time that I decided to call customer services (thats a joke).  A ice lady told me that she would log my complaint.  When asked if I could speak to someone in more authority, I was told no I couldn't and that no feedback was available, un less I wrote in.  So I made two complaints about the customer experience.  The first about my first call with Talk Talk and the second about the compalint handling procedure.  I notice that last year Talk Talk opened a very swanky Customer Experience Centre.  Shame the hype doesn't support the acual experience of being a customer.  Joe Espana

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Oh don't get me started on the 'customer service' is this country. I lived overseas for some years, and I got used to being treated like a 'customer' when I went into shops and restaurants etc. Over here, they give the impression that they are doing you a personal favour by assisting you. The trouble is that writing complaints seems to fall on deaf ears - so the service stays poor.

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A bored spectator - 30-Jun-11 20:31 

Support your small local independents, that is where you should get great service, it is in their (our, I own a shop) interest. It is the only way to guarantee repeat business.

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TonyL - 11-Jun-11 14:34 

I've contacted customer service departments at about five companies in the last couple of weeks for various reasons, and every one has followed up via email with a request that I fill out a survey describing my experience with them. What's with this latest corporate fad? Here's my message to these companies: LEAVE ME ALONE! If I have a problem with a company's customer service, I usually let them know. If you did your job right, you won't hear from me again. One of the banks I dealt with have followed up every couple of days to remind me how vital it is that I comply with their request...they're going to have an ex-customer soon if they don't quit.

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Greg - 13-Apr-11 11:57 

I run a cafe and get many customers who have 'nightmare' experiences with Taltalk, who are better known as 'Notalk'. However, I have also worked in callcentres and have sympathy with the so called Customer Service staff. Callcentres are like battery farms and staff are treated as such. With targets to reach I learned very quickly to tell the customer what they wanted to hear to get rid of them or if possible just disconnect the call so you could be sure to take the required daily quota. The worst callcentres are Govt ones, I worked for the DWP and the priority was meet targets first, service was secondary, every day anyone who hadn't taken their 'quota' of calls the previous day had a session with a manager to 'analyze' the problem. Quantity was the absolute priority, whether you actually helped anyone was irrelevant.

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artuksa - 22-Mar-11 23:53 

Kay I had exactly the same from orange regarding the IPAD on tuesday I have emailed a complaint to them !!!

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TG - 18-Mar-11 15:53 

I cant believe what happened to me today,i ordered a ipad 32 gig for the special price of £99, this Tuesday I paid by debit card and gave a date that I wished for my order to be delivered. everything seemed fine, until I received a phone call from orange to say they had run out of ipad in the 32 gig, funny because they told me they had 49 left I was guaranteed to have one, so I placed a new order for the 64 gig, for an extra £50 the customer service lady apologised for the inconvenience and told me that they had 449 of the 64 gig so there would not be a problem, I then got a phone call a 6pm telling me that orange could not for fill my order as the suppliers had told them they could not let orange have the ipads that had been promised... I booked a day off work for the delivery, orange have got my spare funds as it may take up to 7 days for them to refund, what a joke a multimillion pound company that treats it customers like it doesn't matter that they play with peoples lives. I'm going to have to consider who my service provider is in the future , thanks orange for taking my money twice ,promising me my goods then telling me that that wasn't true, customer service training is available on line at the appropriate site, make she you get what you pay for. !!!!

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Kay Sherman angry and peed - 16-Mar-11 23:46 

I googled, copy and paste, provided excerpts, but it all fizzled into thin air. Try this www below for better results, I hope.

cbc.ca/marketplace

You'll love it. Trust me if you watch see who got BUSTED. They name names, places, scams ...

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Sam, the Tiger - 13-Mar-11 12:50 

Sorry, "a subscriber's paid-for but ...." My watch says 7:33 AM while the PC clock reads 8:33. Time change?

Why didn't this go through the first time? Too short, too incriminating, darned - so I'm padding it up to bulk it.

Failed again, the second time. Sigh, maybe I should find an article on this sort of service garbage in our province and country. Seriously, so much you will pick up from The Marketplace - click on "cbc.ca" and go to the link.

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Sam, the Tiger - 13-Mar-11 12:40 

Deplorable customer service is not peculiar to the United Kingdom only. It's far more than endemic. Watch our Toronto's CBC program if you can - called MARKETPLACE. Google and download. Unbelievable what goes on daily right under our nose in the marketplace.

This week portrayed what goes on in the $20 billion cellphone industry. Here are some representative eye-openers: so, caveat emptor (buyer beware), not caveat venditor anymore. The latter gets away if you assumed too much. I won't mention the names of of these huge intercom conglomerates for their unconscionable trade practices.

A varsity kid visiting Russia was penalized $18,000 for roaming charges. With CBC's intervenion, it was reduced to $5000. Cost to the Russian service provider $4.00 and air time usage was equivalent to downloading half (1/2) a movie. Markup - 125,000% (I didn't work this out).

Another firm reduced a subsciber paid for but insufficiently-used air time daily due to "maintenance cost" for his not knowing how to text. $205.00 and would not budge.

A US citizen (deported) in Toronto and recently divorced from her government official husband had to return to the States. Canceling her phone contract cost her $800.00.

A fat-cat federal Telecommunications Minister, a moron extraordinaire was interviewed; he passed the buck on to our CRTC (Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission). I guess this is where the buck stops, DEAD, right on the track.

Lesson to take from this: DO NOT ASSUME. DO NOT TAKE THINGS FOR GRANTED AT FACE VALUE. KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GETTING INTO. If it's too good to be true, it probably is.

Happy weekend, folks.

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Sam, the Tiger - 13-Mar-11 12:27 

I cannot see how anyone can say that Sky provide good customer service. They have missold me products and they have taken money out of my account by DD that they are not entitled to. They have a cheek to charge me 9p a minute usine skytalk to complain about their sharp practices. Thety are so bad I have lodged a formal complaint with the regulator and I will also be taking action to recover money owed to me.

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Skypeedoff - 11-Mar-11 21:25 

In my opinion, the following companies have excellent customer services: sky, ovo, microsoft, tesco, barlcays, royal bank of scotland, scottish hydro electric.

The following are terrible: lloyds TSB, HBoS, scottish power, virgin media, orange, specsavers.

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retri! - 10-Mar-11 15:59 

In my opinion, the following companies have excellent customer services: sky, ovo, microsoft, tesco, barlcays, royal bank of scotland, scottish hydro electric.

The following are terrible: lloyds TSB, HBoS, scottish power, virgin media, orange, specsavers.

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retri! - 10-Mar-11 14:30 

I completely agree that Talktalk have got to be the worst for customer sevice. After leaving them due to moving house they did not disconnect the phone line to our old address and tried for several months to get money out of us for bills that were nothing to do with us. We had a lot of trouble over a couple of months trying to get through to them to discuss the matter, when we did get through they would say a manager would need to call us back or many a times they would say they were transferring us but instead hang up on us. They never returned any of our emails to them except to tell us that we needed to phone them to discuss the matter!!! The only way we got the matter resolved was by writing to the chief executive of the company who admitted that the whole issue was their mistake and apologised profusely for the staff's behaviour and attitudes. I wonder how many people would feel intimidated by the threatening letters and give in to them and pay the money?? Im glad we fought it but its sad that it takes writing to the chief exec to get any progress!!! The customer service in this country really does suck!!

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splat - 8-Mar-11 15:37 

I know how you feel, I have had many VERY POOR dealings with John Lewis's Store in Cribbs Bristol mainly with their poor services with regards to their warranty's on TV's and electricals.

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Jasper37 - 8-Mar-11 10:48 

I remember back in the good old days when you'd ring up NTL, you'd be on the phone for hours with them, truly abysmal customer service. I hear TT are now the new top dog for that particular award. It's probably not fair to say that it's just a UK problem though, I suspect there's a certain amount of poor customer service in any country that has large unwieldy organisations.

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Ray LM - 8-Mar-11 09:23 

Ex post facto: "and file your complaint" as the UK resident did. Sadly, the report I read did not appear (nor Fry's case) on the site recommended;' you need to search for them as I did. Sorry.

Browse through it and see what's available out there for recourse. Good luck.

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Sam, the Tiger - 7-Mar-11 22:41 

If you feel you've been unfairly shafted, go to the the website called Ripoff Report and file and complaint as the UK resident did for results. Their registered slogan: don't let them get away with it.

You may also wish to read a complaint report filed by a Southern California resident (from Chatsworth) against Fry's Electronics in Woodland Hills (not far from LA to the NW) - with a report initially to the consumer protection bureau, followed by a suit that he won. You need to both speak out and act on it. Keep lambasting them with letter after letter with cc to the top.

I like Fry's in the Bay area for their array of products by virtue of their big box status and locations; but I'm not bowled over by their service. Advice: pick a right guy to deal with. I've no problem saying, "Mind if I get someone else to deal with me."

http://www.ripoffreport.com

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Sam, the Tiger - 7-Mar-11 18:33 

I don't deal with Comet any more because of their customer service.

A video recorder I bought from them a few years ago broke down while still under guarantee. I took it back and they refused to replace it; said they would have to send it away for an engineer to look at, this would take "up to 17 days".

I asked if they had a video to lend me "for up to 17 days" as the one I had brought back was still under guarantee and I felt I was entitled to a replacement. "No." "So what do I do without a video for 2 and a half weeks?" "Sorry, there's nothing we can do."

"Well", "I said, I'm thinking of buying a pvr fairly soon, if you can lend me a video now I will definitely buy the pvr from you. If you don't lend me a video I will definitely NOT buy the pvr from you." Still no dice.

So, I had to go and buy a cheap video (from somewhere else of course) and then I eventually spent the £300 that Comet didn't want on a Humax, from a small local electrical retailer. I could have got it £30 or £40 cheaper from a large chain, but as it's a complicated bit of kit and all the programmes you've recorded are actually in the machine's hard drive I was happy to pay the extra for the better service and peace of mind.

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grumpyoldwoman - 7-Mar-11 17:36 

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