"Customer Service" in this country is absolutely dreadful

[Saint Keith]

I have never bought anything from a cold caller, and I never will. Only this evening I picked up the phone and was instantly given a recorded message saying i'd won an all inclusive cruise and to press 9 to claim it. I let the message repeat in the hope that it'd add to their phone bill and the line then automatically went dead. I'm suspicious that if i pressed 9 the call would be charged to me - can anyone say whether this might have happened?

 

yes, almost certainly you would have gone through, without knowing it, to either a premium rate or overseas number. total scam

[Patrick Bateman]

I have to say, customer service in this country simply is dreadful, from call centres to shops. That program on C4 last night was brilliant and sums up my experience when I go in to most high street shops. I already do (as I'm a miserable, grumpy, impatient old git) exactly what she said and it normally ends in my dumping what I was going to purchase in the middle of the shop and leaving.

If they can't be bothered to show some politeness and common sense, then I can't be bothered to spend my money there. It's not difficult. But then on the program last night, the Manager bloke summed it up; he wasn't bothered either! His training was rubbish, he didn't show his face, the shops looking in need of repair so just how nice is that to work with? He suggested that they were "no worse" than other shops, which is another issue, people are generally too lazy to raise the bar and exceed customer expectations.

Waitrose are a great example. You ask nicely if the assistant knows where an item is, not only does that assistant tell you, they take you to the item and then ask if they can help with anything else (sadly I used to work in Hythe Waitrose 20 years ago whilst at college). Go in to Tesco or Asda and you get a grunt as they try to run you over with their goods cages and a begrudging (try aisle 3). Shocking.

As for call centres, I don't like phoning overseas call centres when it's to do with something UK-based, i.e. TV, phone, mobile etc as a lot of the time, the staff their don't have first hand experience or access to the right systems (especially for TV) and that's what makes it hard. Also, especially Indian workers are very efficient and are more likely to stick to a "call script" during the call, which can be annoying for those of us who know what we're talking about. But I have to say, I don't find understanding overseas call centres any more difficult that getting through to one in Glasgow or Liverpool!

At my last place of work, I was studying business process improvements, so listened in on thousands of customer calls. It has to be said, quite a large portion of the public who phone in are complete d*cks. They start of rude and swearing, are hard to understand sometimes, expect instant resolution and don't explain the problem properly. That means by the time those of us (obviously everyone on this thread) phone in, the agent on the phone is probably a bit p*ssed off, expecting more abuse and generally itching to get home. Some agents I (remotely) listened to at said company weren't good and polite though.

Anyway, generally I'd agree that customer service is getting worse and a few people need to raise the bar and start pulling their fingers out.

[Patrick Bateman]

I realise that last post is littered with typo errors, I was typing/ranting too quickly to proof-read my typos!

[SNSUN]

I can guarantee you, if you come to my window for something, you will get a very high level of customer service.* Even my other colleagues say I help too much, but IMO if you can describe the workings of an Oyster card in 30 seconds, you're not doing it right.

 

*(Unless I'm tired, drunk, hung over, fed up, can't be arsed, apathetic, dislike you, or if it's a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Sunday. Or a Saturday, for that matter.)

[SNSUN]

Generally speaking most call center workers in this country will only be in a job for an average of 6 months, .

 

My missus works in customer service on the phones for an online shop called World Stores - she's been in the job for 2 years yesterday. Yes, she hates it, but it doesn't stop her giving her all to each customer - ultimately she has to abide by the rules of the company, and can only reiterate the policies that the company have.

 

She does want out, she's 27 and really should be looking for a proper career path, but it's fair to say that most of the people she works with in Customer Service have been there longer than she. A lot of people do come in and leave after one shift, but I think that's the same with any unskilled job, once they get a taste of hard work, they bugger off. A few of her employees are students, but they would never stick around for long, no matter what job they're in.

[Saintandy666]

1. Good customer service is not launching yourself on everyone with over the top fake cheeriness and then initiating chat about ****. Some people don't want to speak and you have to judge that.

 

2. Some customers are miserable rude dicks and so don't deserve good service.

 

The end.

[suewhistle]

The most difficulty I ever had with understanding someone was an incomprehensible scouser at a leccy board call centre. Considering that as a teacher of English to foreigners Im pretty good at understanding mangled English I thought that was a leetle surprising.

[trousers]

Credit where credit's due....'UK Drainage Network' have played a blinder today. It's amazing how good customer service becomes when you speak to someone who cares in a local office.

[Smirking_Saint]

Credit where credit's due....'UK Drainage Network' have played a blinder today. It's amazing how good customer service becomes when you speak to someone who cares in a local office.

 

Nail pretty much on head

[trousers]

Credit where credit's due....'UK Drainage Network' have played a blinder today. It's amazing how good customer service becomes when you speak to someone who cares in a local office.

 

I take it back, I'm now back to the one person telling me one thing and another person telling my insurers another. Sigh.

[saint1977]

Royal Mail were dreadful when we moved to Devon last year - the post office branch in Hants made a mistake when sorting it out for us. So do Royal Mail put their own mistake right? No, we had to WRITE to request an amendment! The phone service wasn't "set up yet" and all of this whilst we were selling our property.

 

Not that the private sector is often any better, in fact it usually is even worse with a few notable and pleasing exceptions (often smaller businesses as someone on here observed, Devon is much better than Hants in this regard). I share TDD's frustrations with Virgin Media from past experience and I've had some shocking experiences with bank errors.

[The Cat]

As someone who works in a shop I treat the customers well if they reciprocate. Too many people now are just plain rude. On serving them I'll always make eye contact and say hello, but often all I get in return is a caveman style grunt or complete silence. Bear in mind too that this is in Hamble, so it's hardly like all the residents are knuckle dragging numpties without 2 brain cells to rub together, although some of them are clearly inbred which may affect their intelligence and social skills.

 

Years back a few of my mates temped at British Gas and used to play telephone tennis with the customers. This involved transferring people between them, each time blaming the other person for the mistake that was being complained about. The loser was whoever the caller hung up on.

[buctootim]

Years back a few of my mates temped at British Gas and used to play telephone tennis with the customers. This involved transferring people between them, each time blaming the other person for the mistake that was being complained about. The loser was whoever the caller hung up on.

 

About 5 years ago I was temping doing the recruitment for British Gas customer service staff. Struck me at the time as an odd thing to do, not even select and recruit your own staff. It was obvious the training was poor and the staff turnover high. Interesting to hear how that worked out....