WTF? Friday

I know I tend to complain about customer service but this one takes the cake.You  can read the full story on the eye witness’s blog but his post goes like this (read his, its better).

A tube train was approaching a station and unbeknownst to the travellers on the tube, it was terminating at that stop. Everyone had to get off the train onto the crowded platform. An elderly gentleman was slow to get out of the train carriage so as he was getting off the doors closed trapping his arm. Once released from the door he calmly told the story to a TFL staff member called Ian whom didn’t find feel he had a relevant complaining so started yelling expletives at him to stand back from the platform as a train was coming.  After a few minutes of Ian’s special brand of customer service the blogger whom was a witness in the crowd took out his video camera to film the well handled complaints process…. listen around the 50 second mark when he recommends slinging the guy under the train.

PS – Ian, the TFL employee has since lost his job – surprisingly, I thought that might be grounds for a promotion, the nerve of the old man to take his time getting off the train.

Thanks to Tim for sending me the story

Hold please…

Want to know how I spent some of my weekend?  I complained….to three different companies and feel much better about it – it’s very therapeutic (and sometimes beneficial).

I complained to Barclays because someone has opened an account at their bank using our address and a name that sounds very similar to mine but isn’t.  They have so far received a series of statements, a pin sentry machine (some stupid calculator looking thing that you need to log on to bank online at Barclays), and a bank card.  I am convinced that our address is being used to con pensioners out of their benefits or kids of their pocket money (probably not but that’s just what I think) so I want it to come to an end.  Anyway I have called the ‘fraud’ department who promised they would freeze the account, I then received 4 more pieces of post and another bank card – which I physically took to a branch and was assured their account would be frozen….3 weeks later I received another bunch of letters addressed to my evil doppelganger.  So I phoned and complained….well tried to.

I picked up the phone to complain and realised that our phone line wasn’t working.  We had received three strange messages on our machine this week that sounded like static so I presume it hasn’t been working for a while so I had to complain to Virgin.  My issue at this point was that I had to pay to call them from my mobile as complaints from my landline are free but since it wasn’t working I had to call from my mobile – 15 mins later I was still on hold (although with Virgin you can choose your hold music so I chose Pop and was dancing around a bit) so I hung up and send a nasty email (to which they have finally responded to and are sending out a ‘technician to fix later this week).

Finally I opened my Electricity bill from British Gas and realised we were over £900 in credit on our account – knowing that this has to be one of their many screw ups (they screwed up our Gas bill so badly that we stopped paying for an entire year and they didn’t notice however they had overbilled us so much that when we did re-activate the account we still didn’t owe money).  I rang them and the woman hummed and hawded then put me on hold for 9 mind (FYI, I was paying for this call myself) when she finally came back she apologised and said for some reason they had gone back and reconciled the account recently and the credit was actually just an accumulation of what we have paid over the years and that we actually owed  £60 – that is hardly as exciting.

That is all I can complain about for the minute but the most astounding bit about complaining in the UK is that most of the time you have to call 0800 numbers which are chargeable to YOU, the complainer….you’d think that would discourage me but I think I enjoy acting put out and annoyed too much.

Sorry, I can’t help you.

So I went out this morning in a desperate attempt to get some of my Christmas shopping finished as this is sort of our last weekend before we head home…we have next weekend but I am not expecting to be too productive as we are going out Saturday for my b-day…did I mention it’s coming up?

Anyway I headed out early knowing that most stores can’t open until 12:00 due to UK ‘trading’ laws…most stores however, open at 11:30 to allow you to browse. I took advantage of the pre midday browsing and headed for one of the department stores on the Oxford Street. As I walked into the store, I heard them announce telling customers that in fact they were open but they couldn’t start serving or advising clients until 12:00…I thought that bit about ‘advising’ was a bit strange but figured it was just a legality that they stated vs stuck to.

I walked around the store and saw one lady walk up to a cash register only to have a woman tell her that she couldn’t serve her until 12…the customer looked a bit pissed but walked off and continued to browse. A few minutes later I was looking at a few gift ideas and weren’t sure if they were included in their 20% off sale they have on now so I asked a store employee if the discount applied … she basically waved me off and said sorry I cant talk to you yet then darted off like a figment of my imagination….

WTF!?? I understand that they can’t start doing transactions until 12:00 but they can’t speak to customers before that! Seriously? If that is the case they should either lock the employees away until 12:00 so they don’t have to deal with the dumbfounded looks from customers (like me) or the UK trading authority should allow them to at least talk to their customers as they could lose sales – I wasn’t waiting 30 minutes to have someone tell me whether or not the thing I was looking at was on sale….next time I am going to walk up to an employee at 11:45 with a really expensive item and ask them if it is okay if I leave the store without paying….then when they say sorry I can’t answer that, I might just leave with it…yeah that’s a good idea.

They got it right!

Being in marketing my entire working life I am quite conscious of how brands deal with their loyal customers.  I believe that customer service can be one of the most effective marketing tools that will either work for or against…that is why I am always pleased to see when companies get the customer service bit right (although I admit it hasn’t happened much over here…pretty sure I could fill a blog on bad customer service but will try to refrain)

A few Sundays ago after my hubby’s 30th birthday we were a little hungover and had to figure out where we could get lunch delivered from as we couldn’t fathom leaving the flat to pick something up.  We didn’t feel like pizza necessarily but chose Pizza Hut as you could get a bunch of sides with your pizza….nachos, cheezy potato wedges, chicken fingers, wings and 2 litre drinks (please note, that was not a list of all the things you could get…it was our actual order). 

I was also happy to see that you could place your entire order online through their fairly user friendly website –  they even gave you an option to have different toppings on each half of the pizza and at the check out, it told me what meal deal I could choose which ended up saving me £3. 

Anyway, long story longer we placed our order and waited an hour…with our stomachs just about to digest themselves we got a call from the Pizza Hut that received our online order informing me that the order came through to the wrong store and that they couldn’t deliver to our area!!!  Almost in tears of disbelief and hunger I took down the number for head office as not only could he not deliver but he couldn’t refund my online payment.   I quickly re-ordered from the correct Pizza Hut but probably would have chosen another restaurant had my heart not been craving the nachos so badly.

I was disappointed about the whole online debacle as there are load of people that are hesitant of using the internet for things like pizza dleivery and if they have an experience like mine will probably be weary of online transactions in general – which isn’t good for the industry as a whole.  When i called customer service I did express my disappointment at the glitch as the rest of the process was so easy that this really put she agreed to look into it, apologised and refunded my money for the incorrect order. 

The best bit is that I came home the other night to a letter of apology and a £10 gift certificates for our next order. Very well done as you have now virtually guaranteed another order from me, someone who was definitely iffy on your brand based on the last experience….I do however think that I will order over the phone as I am not 100% convinced the post code glitch will be fixed.

Warm towels and Saturday post

As we approach our 2 year anniversary of living in London I was thinking about some of the things I have come to love while living here as well as a few things I miss from home.

I love
- Saturday mail delivery (and the fact that you can shop online from just about any store in the UK; Marks and Spencer, Boots , Topshop, IKEA, etc)
- no fees for cash withdrawals, you can use ANY banks cash point and don’t ever get charged (unless they are dodgy ones in a corner shop or bar)…also you can pay using your debit card online everywhere
- higher voltage  – amazing for hair dryers as they are super hot and almost blow the hair off your head, microwaves as food cooks in half the time and your kettle boils in less than a minute!
- radiators in the bathroom, not sure I can go back to a cold towel when I get out of the shower
- Sunday roasts…I love that Sundays are meant for having a hangover, a fry up and meeting the locals in the pub for your mid afternoon lunch
- 25 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays AND they are still trying to fight for one more bank holiday as we have the least in all of Europe!

I miss (besides friends and family)
- twist ties, I only use them about 4 times a year but I did struggle for an alternate closure solution when those times cropped up
- proper Ziploc bags, they have ‘re-sealable’ bags here but it takes 10 minutes to line up the both sides and when you do get it closed it’s shut so tight that when you try to open it you rip the bits of plastic above the zip which you were using for leverage
- chicken wings, Swiss Chalet and Tim Hortons (these were submitted by the hubby if you couldn’t tell)
- customer service – believe me, they have never, ever heard the phrase ‘the customer is always right’

I am sure there are more in each category but that’s a start!