Your best and worst customer service experiences [rant & praise]

Yes I am serious I was on hold for more than 2.5 h and the numerous times I've called them after that ,they tell me different stories regarding my contract and the pricing that is the reason I can not continue my service with them because they are unreliable .
Hollands and Barretts- I went in there few times and was just browsing and each time didn't know what the supplements( vitamins ) is for and they knew exactly their benefits and uses when I asked them.

Email Thursday evening 21 May their depot in Ireland had the package,
Email Friday morning 22 May with expected time of delivery 15.00 >16.00,
later SMS with same time ,
Call from driver at mid-day announcing same time frame

and he was at the door at 15.30.

You might say too much contact, but I didn't hang around needlessly

Well I met Steve at The Purple Box on Crow st, I wasn't disappointed! Lovely guy, very genuine and willing to help, would definitely recommend him and his store

Shout out to An post courier-service.ordered something from China,courrier arrived and there was no sign of life.i was in the shop,he rang my number,I rushed back to collected preventing me a trip out to the Galway collection depo which on foot would have a good hour

Three Ireland are an absolute nightmare to deal with. They actually hang up the phone on you! Great value and good service overall, but I had alot of trouble with them when trying to get 4g (They ended up disabling my sim and leaving me without service for 2 days, completely unexplained). They did give me €20 credit as compensation though, so I got over it :P

Woshy wrote: »

We had a very bad experience at Tony Kealy's in Walkinstown recently. We've spent a lot of money there over the last two years on travel systems, car seats etc so I'm extra annoyed.

We're due baby number two in May and I popped in there to order an additional seat to turn our buggy into a double. The first time we visited the guy who showed us the seat didn't seem to know much about it at all, including telling us that a newborn insert for the seat didn't exist. When I went home I had to do my own research and the newborn insert that apparently didn't exist is actually sold on their website! He said there were plenty of the seats in stock so we could come in nearer my due date to get it.

I went in two weeks ago to order the seat and was told none were in stock but I could order it in and it would take two weeks. That was fine with me so I ordered it and they asked me to pay a deposit on it, which I reluctantly did. The next day my husband got a call telling him that they actually weren't going to do an order to the company until the end of June (more than 2 months away) and even then they couldn't guarantee that it wouldn't be later in the year than that. He told my husband they were the only stockists in Ireland for the seat but we could look online and try get it from overseas if we wanted. My husband said we would be really stuck without it but the guy he spoke to didn't seem to care at all. It turns out them being the only stockist in Ireland was a lie.

I found the seat in stock in plenty of other baby supplier shops in Ireland, ordered it that evening and had it, delivered directly to me, within a day and a half. I called Tony Kealy's to cancel the order and ask for my deposit back and they told me (a heavily pregnant woman) I would have to go into their shop in Walkinstown (from Bray) to get my €15 back. I said that was absolutely unacceptable and after being on hold for a minute the manager came on and did the refund over the phone, and to their credit the money was returned to me quite quickly.

I will never buy any products from Tony Kealy's again. The service I received from the other store was miles and miles better in every way, from the customer service to the product knowledge. I now also ordered the newborn insert from the other store as I won't be spending a penny in Tony Kealy's again.

Not a fan of Tony Kealy;s either. Tralee Nursery supplies was great to us ( great price wise) and so was Bella Baby (service wise) in Dundrum. Mamas and Papas cancelled out baby room furniture order when the baby was due in a month- I had ordered it 4 months earlier to be well ahead. very upsetting when heavily pregnant and all hormonal.......

Fair play to AIB, who noticed something dodgy was going on with my card when my account got emptied last night. They rang me this morning and the money has been refunded. Thank God they were on the ball and stopped the transactions before they could take more

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

How were you breached?

Online they said

Ordered a TruSleep mattress deal from LivingSocial weekend before last. Recently moved, and realised soon after I'd ordered I'd inadvertently given my old address. Emailed both of them immediately with the voucher reference number, my details, and my new address.

Never got a reply from TruSleep, got an automated reply from LivingSocial saying they only deal with customer service issue by phone, during weekdays.

Rang them on the Monday willing to cancel the order, but when I explained the situation was told it would be no problem to change the address. Got an email confirmation later that the address had been successfully updated with TruSleep.

Got no delivery notification at any point, then out of the blue got a call Tuesday morning, 8 days later, from a delivery man asking was I home. After some confusion we established that he was at my old address.

Rang LivingSocial again and was told they'd investigate why the address hadn't been updated, work out how to get the delivery to me, and mail me with a resolution. Never heard from them again.


Only plus side was DHL - didn't think they'd deal with me as I wasn't the shipper, but on the off chance I filled out a contact form on their website after the missed delivery. They called me the next morning, by which time someone from the old address had kindly rung to tell me there was a DHL delivery docket there and given me the tracking number. Gave DHL the tracking number and new address, whole thing was sorted in five minutes, got the delivery the next day. And as a bonus the courier waited while I was stuck in traffic trying to get home.

(Checked when I did get the tracking number, it hadn't shipped until four days after I got the address change confirmation, so no chance of a crossover there).

tl;dr
Living Social / TruSleep bad;
DHL (surprisingly) good

Fonfix/Motorola-Fantastic experience

My Moto G died about 2 weeks ago after having it for almost a year. Some software malfunction that I couldnt fix myself was at fault, I'd be fairly tech savvy and spent a few hours trying to fix myself but couldn't.

With a week left on the warranty but with no original proof of purchase I emailed Motorola hoping for a fix. They replied very swiftly and asked me to send my phone to Fonfix who must be contracted to repair their phones in Ireland. I sent it off half expecting Fonfix to call me with a repair price quote but a week later I got my phone back in perfect working order with the latest version of Android and in better than ever condition. I was delighted and not a quibble or delay from either party.

Techmaster wrote: »

You don't need proof of purchase as the purchase date is recorded by the IMEI or serial number.

Good to know, thanks! All in very swift and hassle free service.

Energia.

Congratulations to Energia . Unfortunately, they took my payment by direct debit twice this month. Though that is not great, they handled the problem very well. They sent an apology E-Mail to all those affected, are arranging a refund through the bank and are crediting our Energia accounts with 10 Euro compensation.

Though it would be great if no one ever made mistakes, it is a good sign that they can rectify them promptly and efficiently.

Just returned from doing some groceries at my local Supervalu. As the title says, not a nice experience.

It was fine as I was actually walking around the store, but when it was time to head to the checkout, it was clear that the place was seriously and irresponsibly understaffed. It's a large store, not a former Superquinn, but one that was substantially refurbished around the same time.

There was one main till open and one other guy on his own in the newsagents and pretty huge queues. Two of the fast lane tills had obviously just closed and the staff at them were holding the tills laden with cash ready to hand them in and nobody came to relieve them for as long as I watched.

I decided to queue at the newsagents since I just had a basket. About this time, a gang of about 10 kids, about 12-13 year old in general, arrived in. Most of them were just hanging out in the store - as you do. One kid legitimately entered the queue ahead of me. Then, as some of the others started picking up bits and pieces, they begin shuffling towards their friend in the queue, as if nobody would notice or say anything. Given the generalised chaos in the store, I wasn't having it. So I told one boy who had very definitely skipped the queue to stand beside his friend that his friend was ahead of me but he most definitely wasn't and would not be going to the till ahead of me. He may not have answered me back, but it was clear from his arrogant expression that respect for others hasn't been a major part of his upbringing. Needless to say, at this point, the whole gang of them moved to the back of the queue so I'm pretty sure that I was about to be skipped by more than one!

It actually is really rare for me to do something like that. I'm a teacher but believe it or not I run a mile from 'disciplining' kids in my private life. I don't live near where I work and I like keeping a low profile! I was actually surprised that nobody else in the queue backed me up once I'd done it though.

I related the whole thing to the guy at the till and got the usual non-committal grunt that passes for customer service in this country. The security guy had disappeared and the guy at the till conceded that they were understaffed and hadn't expected the shop to be so busy. Seemed like a normal suburban Sunday evening to me. I suggested that if they couldn't police their shop they might like to pay the customers to do it for them:)