Sitting Still
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There are two companies that are really annoying me at present, for reasons I will go into shortly.
I have to say though, from personal experience, I find that the vast majority of businesses these days are very efficient, well-oiled machines. There are very few that I have difficulties with.
Granted, these automated phone systems are, a lot of the time, a total pain in the ****, but I use one to do my banking over the telephone and it is quick and simple to use. I’m very impressed with it.
I have complained to a few companies in recent years, and in most cases got a very satisfactory response.
For instance, a few months ago I was tucking into a Pasta-based ready meal, which I purchased from an Asda Supermarket. Whilst merrily chewing away, I bit down on something hard. I examined the article which had almost removed a few of my teeth, and found it to be what looked like a small square piece of plastic.
I kept it, and marched down to the supermarket from whence it came to have a rant at the customer services desk. The girl on the counter was very helpful, took my contact details and the foreign item, and promised to get back to me shortly.
Within one week, a letter came through my door apologising for the object which was lurking in my lunch. It explained that they had analysed the item and discovered it to be- pasta. But due to some kind of error, it had been over-processed and their strict quality techniques should have ensured that it didn’t find a way onto my plate. They vowed to look into the production of the said meal to try and improve the system, and apologised to me profusely for any distress caused. They also threw into £20-worth of vouchers, which went down very nice as well, thank you!
It’s not just Asda (but they get the mention for the amount of compensation I received!)
Other companies are borderline. Remember when the first Lord of the Rings movie came out, back in 2002 I think? Everybody (myself included) was aching to see it! I phoned the local cinema to book a few tickets for my then-girlfriend and myself. I was placed in a queue (‘you are currently eighth in our queuing system,’ a voice told me, ‘please continue to hold’). A few seconds later, I was seventh, then sixth, and within five minutes I was told I was second in the queue. I continued to hold, as requested, writhing with excitement at the motion-picture feast which was coming my way. Ten minutes later, I was still second in the queue. Half an hour later, I was still in the same position. I was scared to hang up because I had a terrible feeling that if I called back again I would be 3,243rd in the queue and would end up waiting forever. After forty-five minutes of being second in the queue however, I hung up, fired up the PC, and knocked out a strongly worded letter, explaining my frustration at being lied to by a robotic receptionist.
Hey Presto! A few days later, two FREE tickets for Lord of the Rings came through my door. Very good.
I wasn’t entirely happy with the response I got, but didn’t pursue my line of complaint any further. Cineworld- consider yourself ‘borderline’ at the moment.
So now to the naming and shaming part. First up, the catalogue store Argos.
For those of you that don’t know, Argos is a store where you pick your items out of a catalogue then go to the store and collect. Easy. For most items. However, in January of 2005, I wanted to spend some of my Christmas money on a new freezer. I spotted one in the Argos catalogue, reasonably priced, and decided I would have it. However, the item was marked “Home Delivery Only”. I was not allowed to go and collect it as it wasn’t available in-store, and would have to be brought to me directly from the warehouse. That won’t be too bad, I thought to myself.
I phoned up Argos to place my order, and they told me that the said item would be delivered the following Thursday between 7am and 12pm. “Wait a minute,” I protested, “I’ll be at work then. As I’m the customer, surely I get to tell you when I’d like it delivered.”
“No,” came the reply. “It works on a rota-system so you have to take delivery of it when we say.”
Really folks. This is true, and still is to this day as far as I’m aware. When you buy a delivery-only item from Argos, THEY tell YOU when you must take delivery of it. Customer service, or what?
Not in the mood for arguing (apart from suggesting they deliver on Saturday when I’m not at work, to be told that they don’t deliver at weekends, which, as you can imagine, is wonderfully convenient for most hard-working people!), I accepted the Thursday AM delivery, and proceeded to book the morning off work.
At 1:10pm, and still having seen neither hide nor hair of the freezer and having to be setting off for work, I telephoned Argos to ask where my freezer was.
“The truck broke down,” I was told, “Sorry- we’re going to have to re-schedule. Is tomorrow ok?”
WHAT!!?? After further questioning, I discovered that the truck had broken down at 8am, meaning that if they had contacted me then to let me know what was happening, I could have gone into work and would have quite happily taken the following morning off. However, because they had cost me a morning’s wages, I told them that I would be in touch at a time more convenient to myself to sort out when the next delivery could take place.
The next evening, Friday, I came home from work to find a note from Argos on my doorstep, informing me that my freezer had been left with neighbours. Neighbours which I didn’t particularly like.
I went and collected the freezer from the neighbours, phones Argos and told them to collect the freezer.
“Well, it’s going to be Monday from 12pm till 5pm,” I was told.
As you can understand, I was livid. “Right,” I told them. “You can collect it whenever you want, but it’s going in the front garden as of now!”
The next morning I awoke to find that the freezer had gone, and a note had been posted through my letterbox from Argos, informing me of its collection and my impending credit.
Funny, isn’t it, how they can turn up on a Saturday when they really want to!
Argos, you are named and shamed for this shoddiness!
Next up, Subway, the sandwich shop. The following events didn’t happen to me (as I’m not a huge fan of Subway anyway) but to a friend of mine.
After a night out, my friend, feeling a little peckish, called into a certain branch of Subway to be told, “We have no bread… of ANY kind!”
Surely, one of the major factors in the successful running of a sandwich shop would be to have bread. This happened on a busy Friday night, and my friend had queued for over half an hour (most of the time outside in the rain) before getting to the counter to be informed of this. Apparently, they had run out of bread FOUR HOURS prior to my friend making a visit to this establishment. So why were they letting people queue? Presumably, so they would get to the counter and buy something else, is my guess!
Unperturbed, the following weekend, the same friend went to the same store. This time the store was empty so she and her friend ordered their sandwiches and drinks and took a seat. My friend decided she needed to make a toilet visit so headed for the ladies. She had hardly got through the door when a bouncer (yep- what a career! That’ll impress the ladies- ‘Hi girls, I’m a doorman at Subway!’) went in after her, and marched her out of the shop with her arms twisted up her back. When she asked what she had done to provoke such an over-reaction from the ape-like mammoth that frog-marched her out of the building, she was told, “You were using toilets that are off-limits!” That was the full explanation she was given
Subway, I hope you’re thoroughly ashamed of yourselves for this incident. My friend insists that she wasn’t being rude or offensive to staff in any way, and certainly wasn’t drunk.
I hope she has made management aware of the situation; it would be interesting to see how they would respond to this!
It’s strange, isn’t it, how some companies believe the customer owes THEM something. In many cases the customer is treated like they’re a hindrance to the daily business rather than an essential.
It must change.
As I said at the beginning, some companies are very good, some struggle but deal with complaints very efficiently, and others treat you like a piece of ****, unworthy to darken their doorsteps. We, as customers, must make these companies aware that we won’t stand for their shoddy treatment by boycotting their stores and services.
Let’s get these businesses working harder for our money! |
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