Customer service - what customer service? UK!

[Nick Armstrong]

Engineer and lawyers (for Caliban)

Bless you, Dave.

[Dave2002]

I thought I'd issue a personal update.

1. Amazon UK - after several attempts finally managed to get a full refund of a purchase of a large faulty item delivered to the Highland area of Scotland, including the carriage. It was hard to know whether am.uk had actually done the refund, but actually a phone call to my credit card recently confirmed that despite much obfuscation it had been refunded in January. Amazon had claimed that they couldn't accept my scanned copy of the post office receipt of posting, as it was sent on a different email account from the one which they have linked to my account. That could have been for several reasons - one being that I do have several accounts, and another being that the way the mail is set up it's always possible that a different SMTP server could be used. I tried to correct that, but never had a reply - hence the need to check my credit card account.

2. Amazon UK - A very poor quality item - possibly Market Place seller - was allegedly refunded before the end of last year, but I don't think it was for the full amount. I haven't yet followed that one up - may just take a loss on that, though I don't see why I should have to.

3. East Coast Trains. I am still waiting for a refund of £30 for a taxi fare incurred because of a serious delay to a train in September 2014. I have had made several phone calls, and several emails and letters. I have refused to send my bank account details via email, though I've supplied the details several times in letters. I'm hopeful that my most recent letter will have been effective, but it hadn't been last time I checked my bank account.

If this doesn't get done soon I suppose I'll have to write to Sir Richard Branson, as the service gets taken over by Virgin!

Also, not in the UK,

4. Amazon Spain. The "Real Chopin" set which turned out to be a single CD, and returned to Spain has allegedly been refunded - though again not in full - but where has the money gone? There is no indication on my credit card statements.

Overall, each example of "customer service problems" is so time consuming to deal with that it is very hard to cope with. There seems nearly always to be what might be considered "constructive incompetence".

One representative of another company said in a phone call to Mrs D, during what became almost daily chats over a period of several (many?) weeks, when it was suggested that he must have many phone calls from people like her, "No, I don't get many calls. Most people don't through to me, they usually give up before that."

We have been tempted to post his number on the web - though that issue was eventually resolved satisfactorily. Bless him!

I have talked to amazon people from time to time, but the numbers are difficult to find. The people are usually quite helpful, and sometimes things do get resolved quickly and effectively, but not always. The closing out of "issues" on the web site, when they haven't actually been signed off by the customer is really poor. A close out of a problem should be agreed between the supplier and the customer - it is not up to the supplier to simply decide that difficulties have been dealt with satisfactorily when there hasn't been a complete resolution. Also, Amazon sometimes misrepresents the situation - marking the reason for return as "Item ordered incorrectly", when in fact it should have been "Item faulty and not fit for purpose". This tactic appears to pass responsibility back to the customer.


For Amazon UK, seemingly the customer service telephone number is 0843 459 7693. - according to http://www.helpfulnumbers.co.uk/home...tact-number-uk Check it isn't a premium rate number.

It would be so much easier if they put the numbers on the web site

[Beef Oven!]

I thought I'd issue a personal update.

1. Amazon UK - after several attempts finally managed to get a full refund of a purchase of a large faulty item delivered to the Highland area of Scotland, including the carriage. It was hard to know whether am.uk had actually done the refund, but actually a phone call to my credit card recently confirmed that despite much obfuscation it had been refunded in January. Amazon had claimed that they couldn't accept my scanned copy of the post office receipt of posting, as it was sent on a different email account from the one which they have linked to my account. That could have been for several reasons - one being that I do have several accounts, and another being that the way the mail is set up it's always possible that a different SMTP server could be used. I tried to correct that, but never had a reply - hence the need to check my credit card account.

2. Amazon UK - A very poor quality item - possibly Market Place seller - was allegedly refunded before the end of last year, but I don't think it was for the full amount. I haven't yet followed that one up - may just take a loss on that, though I don't see why I should have to.

3. East Coast Trains. I am still waiting for a refund of £30 for a taxi fare incurred because of a serious delay to a train in September 2014. I have had made several phone calls, and several emails and letters. I have refused to send my bank account details via email, though I've supplied the details several times in letters. I'm hopeful that my most recent letter will have been effective, but it hadn't been last time I checked my bank account.

If this doesn't get done soon I suppose I'll have to write to Sir Richard Branson, as the service gets taken over by Virgin!

Also, not in the UK,

4. Amazon Spain. The "Real Chopin" set which turned out to be a single CD, and returned to Spain has allegedly been refunded - though again not in full - but where has the money gone? There is no indication on my credit card statements.

Overall, each example of "customer service problems" is so time consuming to deal with that it is very hard to cope with. There seems nearly always to be what might be considered "constructive incompetence".

One representative of another company said in a phone call to Mrs D, during what became almost daily chats over a period of several (many?) weeks, when it was suggested that he must have many phone calls from people like her, "No, I don't get many calls. Most people don't through to me, they usually give up before that."

We have been tempted to post his number on the web - though that issue was eventually resolved satisfactorily. Bless him!

I have talked to amazon people from time to time, but the numbers are difficult to find. The people are usually quite helpful, and sometimes things do get resolved quickly and effectively, but not always. The closing out of "issues" on the web site, when they haven't actually been signed off by the customer is really poor. A close out of a problem should be agreed between the supplier and the customer - it is not up to the supplier to simply decide that difficulties have been dealt with satisfactorily when there hasn't been a complete resolution. Also, Amazon sometimes misrepresents the situation - marking the reason for return as "Item ordered incorrectly", when in fact it should have been "Item faulty and not fit for purpose". This tactic appears to pass responsibility back to the customer.


For Amazon UK, seemingly the customer service telephone number is 0843 459 7693. - according to http://www.helpfulnumbers.co.uk/home...tact-number-uk Check it isn't a premium rate number.

It would be so much easier if they put the numbers on the web site

Dave2002,

I use the 'contact us' section of the site if I have any issues with Amazon UK.

You type in the phone number that you want them to call you on and specify if you want to be called immediately or in 5 minutes. Works perfectly.

Why don't you use this facility?

[Dave2002]

Dave2002,

I use the 'contact us' section of the site if I have any issues with Amazon UK.

You type in the phone number that you want them to call you on and specify if you want to be called immediately or in 5 minutes. Works perfectly.

Why don't you use this facility?

Thanks for the suggestion. Next time I may try that, though dealing with Spain may prove more of a challenge.

In the hour or so since the last post I've also had to chase up a query with BT. I spotted a problem with my telephone bill, but within the latest billing period. I was told to wait until the bill was finalised, when it would be corrected. The bill was a few days back, and. .... the problem remains. i have been assured it will be fixed. I await with interst.

i do have serious concerns about consumer service, and there are the following possibilities:

1. I and my friends are uniquely singled out for poor service.
2. Other people don't complain, and simply put up with poor goods and services.
3. Other people do complain but get nowhere, and give up.
4. Some people do keep plugging away until eventually they get acceptable service.
5. Some people do manage to get good service

I think that many of us do get 5 from companies some, perhaps most, of the time, but when things don't work out too many put up with 2 and/or 3. A few persistent and robust persons manage 4.

That some companies are putting effort into providing good service most of the time is very sensible, but many are very poor at dealing with failures. A concern is that some are deliberately using that as a business model. Sometimes it's a whole sector thing, not just one company.

I have also found that organisations such as Citizens' Advice, Trading standards, and various legal organisations make helpful noises, but frequently are about as much use as the chocolate tea pots which drip down the wall off my shelf.

Admittedly these last mentioned services don't normally get involved (by me) for small amounts, though Trading Standards did once successfully prosecute a company on my and other's behalfs for selling returned goods "as new" - but it was not really much good to me as the item I purchased was held as evidence so I did lose financially, though not by much

Trying to get service or legal or other redress is at times like something out of Kafka.

[P. G. Tipps]

Not sure this is the way forward when making a customer complaint... or when responding....

The actress who was former landlady of the Rovers Return engaging today on Twitter with Virgin Trains (and Twitterers Lee, Mark, Shannon & Tony joining in the fun):



Denise Welch@RealDeniseWelch·3 hours ago
@VirginTrains Hi. After my £413 trip with no meal or hot drinks, Im travelling 2nd class on the 2.11 Wilmslow to Euston. An upgrade?

Virgin Trains@VirginTrains·3 hours ago
@RealDeniseWelch Good to have you onboard Denise, but afraid not.

Denise Welch@RealDeniseWelch·2 hours ago
@VirginTrains May I ask why when as a very regular traveller I spent £413 and got not even a hot coffee??

Virgin Trains@VirginTrains·2 hours ago
@RealDeniseWelch Are you referring to the time we offered you a bottle of champagne?

Lee@stepz 2 hours ago
@VirginTrains @RealDeniseWelch oops :/

Mark Wood@ruggerlad·2 hours ago
“@VirginTrains: @RealDeniseWelch Are you referring to the time we offered you a bottle of champagne? ” #genius

shannon@tellaliltruth·1 hour ago
@VirginTrains @RealDeniseWelch denise doesn't drink

Denise Welch@RealDeniseWelch·7 minutes ago
@VirginTrains I don't drink alcohol and it was a quarter bottle of Prosecco!!

Tony Blaney@Tonyblaney·2 minutes ago
@VirginTrains @RealDeniseWelch how nice of #virgintrains to offer recovering alcoholic prosecco... #coffeewillsuffice

Just noticed this ...

As it happens, I travelled on the 12.11, Wilmslow-Euston on Monday, cost £15.80, and returned Wednesday, cost £11.20. Standard Class, of course. The cost of both trips included connecting services to Maidenhead, Berks.

Don't know if there were any hot drinks on sale as I take my own flask (tea) and then don't need to leave my seat, apart from a possible trip to the toilet.

£413! ... ... if employers are rich and silly enough to pay such absurd prices in advance, absolutely no point in blaming Virgin Trains for an unavoidable technical failure on a probably over-used and clapped-out water-boiler?

[Petrushka]

Those of us in full time employment just haven't the time for this sort of thing. Having said that, I've never had (touches wood frantically) a problem with Amazon though I did with a seller when a CD failed to turn up. An issue with East Midland Trains a while back when I was charged by the on-train guard for the wrong destination was sorted out reasonably quickly.

Life's too short to spend hours on the phone/computer sorting out the kind of issues above. In all honesty, I'd weigh up the likely hassle, level of loss and take a view on whether it's worth bothering about or not. Sometimes things go wrong and you have to accept that and move swiftly on.

[Flosshilde]

[B]After a while him upstairs gets to hear about this, and manages to get hold of a mobile phone, and rings up Satan.

Actually my idea of heaven is somewhere without mobile phones - so I'm disappointed to hear that Heaven won't be heaven!

[Dave2002]

Those of us in full time employment just haven't the time for this sort of thing. Having said that, I've never had (touches wood frantically) a problem with Amazon though I did with a seller when a CD failed to turn up. An issue with East Midland Trains a while back when I was charged by the on-train guard for the wrong destination was sorted out reasonably quickly.

Life's too short to spend hours on the phone/computer sorting out the kind of issues above. In all honesty, I'd weigh up the likely hassle, level of loss and take a view on whether it's worth bothering about or not. Sometimes things go wrong and you have to accept that and move swiftly on.

I agree with your basic sentiments to a considerable extent, though it may depend on your employment, and how serious the problems to be corrected are. To some people £10 may be a lot, others may be happy enough to lose £10k.

In fairness to Amazon UK, it's usually OK, though not perfect. What is interesting is looking at the user reviews for products. In one of the most recent cases - the issue of an ironing board delivered to the Highlands, the particular model had an almost overwhelming number of good reviews, and a handful of very poor reviews. Most of the poor reviews referred to stability, and legs which seemed to be the wrong length. That product seemed to be a 98% good or excellent vs 2% poor of very bad one.
I'm not disbelieving those who found it to be good, but our experience was that it was definitely very poor, and worse than the cheap and "inferior" model we'd had years ago - probably from Tesco, and we did not want to order a replacement.
We were most probably in the 2% category. It was what happened next which gave me a fairly poor view of Amazon, in that case.

I now tend to look more carefully at the reviews and weigh up the positive versus the negative ones more carefully, and then of course hope that we don't end up in the bottom category. If there are similar number of very good to very poor reviews one should ask oneself why. I think some people only look at the good reviews, and perhaps that's what the suppliers want them to do.

Where a company is providing 98% good versus 2% bad service initially, it should be possible surely to put more effort into resolving the problem cases, so that even the 2% cases mostly get converted into an acceptable response.

However, as companies provide less good service, perhaps veering towards 90%/10% or even 80%/20% good/bad they may find difficulty in making headway. One company which had that problem, and in fact went into liquidation after 100 years or more, was Amdega, which made conservatories. The problem they had was that they started to get a lot of difficult maintenance problems, and they perhaps tried to overcome their problems by selling more, which simply meant that they then didn't have enough profitability to remedy the maintenance issues for the customers who weren't satisfied, typically with leaking roofs. Eventually it became unsustainable, and the company went bust, and some suppliers and new customers lost a considerable amount. The worst affected were perhaps those who had partly built units.
The trade name was sold on to Everest by the liquidators, in an attempt to recover some of the losses.

Some reputable companies do come unstuck, for various reasons. There are also a large number of small, and sometimes much less scrupulous companies, where the directors do not see bankruptcy as a particular problem, and they simply reconfigure once the companies they run have been bled dry and the profits taken. Not all directors are like that though, and there are some honourable cases of people who have run businesses which have failed, and have then managed to recover and pay off all their creditors, and subsequently run a successful business. Such people are to be admired, but those who deliberately use failure as a means of making themselves a profit are a disgrace.

I don't actually like having to complain, but without complaints, and in some cases people following them through a long and very tedious process to a conclusion, there will be many people who will accept poor goods and/or service, and companies which will provide them. I really do believe this is a problem in the UK, though it's slightly better than it was 20 years ago.

[antongould]

Rumpole stop picking on people from the pit heaps (again!).

Lady Gould bought a £45 inflatable snowman from Amazon or rather one of their sellers......it never inflated by more than 63%....no response from the seller when a refund requested - I pushed Amazon and got an immediate refund. Anyone want the snowman.....I feel Bryn or Dave could easily repair it.........

[Dave2002]

Lady Gould bought a £45 inflatable snowman from Amazon or rather one of their sellers......it never inflated by more than 63%....no response from the seller when a refund requested - I pushed Amazon and got an immediate refund. Anyone want the snowman.....I feel Bryn or Dave could easily repair it.........

I think inflatables are best left to others - Wilt for example.

[Beef Oven!]

Rumpole stop picking on people from the pit heaps (again!).

Lady Gould bought a £45 inflatable snowman from Amazon or rather one of their sellers......it never inflated by more than 63%....no response from the seller when a refund requested - I pushed Amazon and got an immediate refund. Anyone want the snowman.....I feel Bryn or Dave could easily repair it.........

Of course

I imagine that they thought no-one would complain because people would be too embarrassed and they'd get away with it (unless it really was Lady Gould and it really was a snowman).

[antongould]

Of course

I imagine that they thought no-one would complain because people would be too embarrassed and they'd get away with it (unless it really was Lady Gould and it really was a snowman).

Sure you don't want it Beefers?

[Beef Oven!]

Sure you don't want it Beefers?

[richardfinegold]

Rumpole stop picking on people from the pit heaps (again!).

Lady Gould bought a £45 inflatable snowman from Amazon or rather one of their sellers......it never inflated by more than 63%....no response from the seller when a refund requested - I pushed Amazon and got an immediate refund. Anyone want the snowman.....I feel Bryn or Dave could easily repair it.........

For a few pounds more, you could have bought her a plane ticket over the pond to Boston, which has had 4 major blizzards and assorted 'Noreasters' this winter, and she would have been cured permentantly of any snow longing.

[Dave2002]

Those of us in full time employment just haven't the time for this sort of thing. Having said that, I've never had (touches wood frantically) a problem with Amazon though I did with a seller when a CD failed to turn up. An issue with East Midland Trains a while back when I was charged by the on-train guard for the wrong destination was sorted out reasonably quickly.

Life's too short to spend hours on the phone/computer sorting out the kind of issues above. In all honesty, I'd weigh up the likely hassle, level of loss and take a view on whether it's worth bothering about or not. Sometimes things go wrong and you have to accept that and move swiftly on.

In some ways I agree with you, but I may come back on this.

It would be a lot better if companies had the following business plan:

1. Get it right first time, so no need for any complaint resolution. -> go to END
2. If things go wrong, try to get them sorted as quickly and fairly as possible - go to END

BUT NOT

,,, Stonewall - put off accepting any responsibility - give the customer a hard time - make customers go through ridiculous hoops until they give up.
This is just very bad practice, and I fear some companies think that's a good thing.

Re full time employment - there would be more of it if companies paid attention to customer service - or maybe not. As the Maytag TV advert in the US many years ago - had a guy in an office - for Maytag customer service. Not busy. The phone goes after, presumably many years. Turns out to be a wrong number!

Maybe I remembered it badly, but I think that was it.