Customer service go to the dogs

PC Lackey · 17-01-2016 12:02AM

A certain large Irish diy supply providers comes to mind.

Gormless ass-clowns, member of staff stood yapping and laughing on the phone as I stood right in front of them.

PC Lackey · 17-01-2016 12:04AM

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Lllllllet's take a riiiide and run with the dogs toniiiiight in suburbiaaaaaa.

you will find your car seats stained with shyte in suburbia

in suburbia

in suburbia

Corpus Twisty · 17-01-2016 12:10AM

Never was €170 whinged about by so many, for so long.

The Sidewards Man · 17-01-2016 12:19AM

Corpus Twisty wrote: »

Never was €170 whinged about by so many, for so long.

Its almost a weeks dole to some of the posters here sure :pac:

extra gravy · 17-01-2016 12:29AM

Hard to know whether it's gotten worse or if more people are just unreasonable whingebags that would prefer to air their grievances on social media rather than deal with them privately.

Saw one recently where a guy had ordered a drink in a restaurant but for whatever reason the waiter forgot to bring it to him. Instead of giving said waiter a gentle reminder, the customer decided to sit there like a sad bastard and actually count the time he was waiting for the drink. He then went on to rant about it online. Some customers need to get over themselves.

seamusk84 · 17-01-2016 12:30AM

^This

People are just getting more and more whingy. Taking out their frustration with their own lives at any given opportunity.

Robsweezie · 17-01-2016 12:39AM

extra gravy wrote:

Hard to know whether it's gotten worse or if more people are just unreasonable whingebags that would prefer to air their grievances on social media rather than deal with them privately.

They'll make a slight grunt or grimace in front of the staff, then go home and hack away on the keyboard.

Azalea · 17-01-2016 12:48AM

222233 wrote: »

As previously stated I worked in CS not so long ago during which time I had been moved between 2 outsourced companies - I also did CS part time in my last position therefore I have seen the setup for 3 separate companies.

It;s great that you delivered wonderful service and I do understand the lack of capacity one has as a cs agent, but as I previously pointed out often management are required to intervene which much of the time they simply have no interest in doing.

So yes, it's not the frontline advisor's fault as I said. Yeah I found it surprising that you worked in customer service - I loved it too by the way. Would have stayed only for the hours.

In my own experience I have spoken to very few nice and helpful agents, I have spoken to far more who have been rude and unhelpful. I have for quite some time been very bothered by what companies see acceptable in their cs operations and the attitudes of staff.

Most customer service advisors I have spoken to have been very polite and helpful and friendly - and that includes before I ever worked in customer service. Your own manner when contacting them makes a huge difference. Whereas, while the majority of people I dealt with myself as a customer service advisor, were fine - often very nice, a significant minority of them spoke utterly disgracefully to me (and most of the time when they were the ones at fault).

You said you don't view "We're very busy" as an explanation for long delays with the phone being picked up/emails being responded to - but it *is*. I agree it should only be said as a last resort, but it's a valid explanation, and customers should remember they are not the only customer. When customers are experiencing problems and they are not rude (they don't have to be super nice, just not abusive) you want to go out of your way to help them. People are entitled to complain but they are not entitled to be abusive. It is good to have empathy for the customer, as you had - a very important part of customer service, but allowing yourself to be a metaphorical punchbag is going way too far.

You talk about laziness and complacency among advisors - that does exist, which is very unfortunate, but a tiny minority in my experience, which is most advisors wanting to help customers. I don't understand why you say nobody wants to give refunds - why would they not want to if the customer is entitled to one? Why would advisors deliberately make their own job more difficult? "Lazy people would leave you until the very end, they would prioritise the person who may get them a bonus as opposed to the person where they will have to make management sign off on a refund" - never heard of that.

I think people are answered quickly on social media by the way because there is a much lower volume of queries on that than there is over the phone/via email.

You talk about "nobody wanting to listen to you on the phone" - where are you getting this from? Advisors are bound by the company rules - this is not the same as being unhelpful. And your comments about people updating their Twitter (we did not have internet access) and moaning to their colleagues is just pure conjecture. It's like the assumption that people don't respond to emails for ages because they're ignoring them; it's because of a back-log.

In a nut-shell: don't shoot the messenger, write to the senior management.

Azalea · 17-01-2016 12:49AM

extra gravy wrote: »

Hard to know whether it's gotten worse or if more people are just unreasonable whingebags that would prefer to air their grievances on social media rather than deal with them privately.

The first one.

I went to a cafe today and the customer service was poor. The guy got irritated with where we chose to sit for some reason, so we moved to another table. Took our orders - I clearly stated what I would like, he obviously didn't listen, and then advised me I couldn't have the side dish I requested with that particular dish, to which I explained that wasn't the dish, so the order had to be started again. Then he went off fixing the wifi for ages, rather than giving the kitchen our orders. So we just said we were cancelling and left - easy peasy. Complain with your feet.

Steppenwolfe · 17-01-2016 01:01AM

Gotta love the optimism of ordering something online at the beginning of December and expecting it before Xmas.

Azalea · 17-01-2016 01:05AM

Steppenwolfe wrote: »

Gotta love the optimism of ordering something online at the beginning of December and expecting it before Xmas.

To be fair, Amazon or Apple would be able to do that no problem. PC World obviously cannot have their level of resources but a lack of resources is clearly an issue for them, and the OP's annoyance is understandable - they are just going about addressing it in the wrong way.

Robsweezie · 17-01-2016 01:21AM

You are rude/abusive = I don't help you, or I if have to, do so reluctantly

You are civil= i help you no problem

You are nice= I go that extra mile to help you

That is applicable to real life scenarios not just customer service. Are you gonna want to get your brother a cup of tea if he snaps at you not to forget to leave the teabag in, and doesn't use manners?

Don't be surprised if you find customer service behaviour mirroring your own. Even if it's not the most "professional " way to be.

The_Kew_Tour · 17-01-2016 01:28AM

PC World are awful to buy from.

Best buy cheaper elsewhere

Azalea · 17-01-2016 01:31AM

Robsweezie wrote: »

You are rude/abusive = I don't help you, or I if have to, do so reluctantly

You are civil= i help you no problem

You are nice= I go that extra mile to help you

That is applicable to real life scenarios not just customer service. Are you gonna want to get your brother a cup of tea if he snaps at you not to forget to leave the teabag in, and doesn't use manners?

Don't be surprised if you find customer service behaviour mirroring your own. Even if it's not the most "professional " way to be.

Being aggressive to customer advisors means they will do the job completely (although they can rightly disconnect people who keep swearing at them, after warnings) because that is what they are paid to do, and they have to (and they of course *should* do) but they likely won't be going the extra mile.

lightspeed · 17-01-2016 01:33AM

Mr_Muffin wrote: »

Ah, someone doesn't get what they want so they take to Facebook fishing for likes to make themselves feel better. Nothing new here.

No someone doesnt get any customer service from email or phone and have to use facebook to get a response because that is how **** customer service is now.

Used to be you got put on hold and talked to someone from India and now its becoming the norm to just wait until customer makes an issue on social media.

Until recently i worked in customer service for 5 years for a company contracted by a state body to manage tolls on a busy dublin motorway. Sometimes we were at a point for months where it would take 6 weeks responding to a message despite SLA being 48 hours.

Anyone who contacted us via facebook or twitter, we were told to respond to them straight away.

lightspeed · 17-01-2016 02:34AM

The Backwards Man wrote: »

Ah right, you're just talking about this specific case, or what we know of it. I'm speaking more in general terms. That's what I don't like about this outing of companies online, how do we know what's true and what's not? For every genuine concern there's a badmouth.

Well I understand your point. For what its worth im not sure if there is a currys/pc world rep on boards but if there is, id welcome them to challenge my story.

Furthermore, Im very proud of my actions and position ive taken. I also dont care about facebook and dont care if banned from it.

They intentionally launched the black friday discounts while intentionally not hiring the staff to deal with increase in sales. They done this while knowing Christmas was around the corner and yet still advertised stock as online with fast delivery of 4-5 days.

The company had two choices. They could hire more staff to maintain customer service and also create jobs. Alternatively, they could allow customer service to suffer in environment where social media has such a large impact on customer relations and assume Irish customers will keep shopping with them as we are just that stupid.

They choose the 2nd option. They know they dont respond by email or answer their phones and only respond via facebook.

If they want people to respond via social media and insist on that being the only method to communicate with customers, then I will honour and respect their wishes which is exactly what im doing.

A business should consider customer service as a necessary expense and deserves to suffer consequence and damage to reputation if it ever thinks otherwise.

I know me sending the same post to them again and again is an inconvenience for them, that is why ive done it.

I dont really care about the money. I didnt even notice it until recently when i checked my bank statement and saw it wasn't refunded. I also dont want anybody's sympathy. Why would I, how would it be of use to me?

I want a large profitable corporation to understand that if they intentionally choose to offer poor customer service to save a small amount of money, they will get all the consequences and potential costs associated.

As for the argument that its poor front line workers that will deal with all my posts, yes that is their job. If they dont have time to deal with other requests, id imagine backogs would grow and again similar issues would arise until PC world hire more staff. Which is entirely justfied and again the path they intentionally choose to go down when they choose not hire staff knowing they would be understaffed.

Azalea · 17-01-2016 02:43AM

lightspeed wrote: »

Furthermore, Im very proud of my actions and position ive taken. I also dont care about facebook and dont care if banned from it.

Why would you be proud of spamming?

I know me sending the same post to them again and again is an inconvenience for them, that is why ive done it.

But that will just create more work for them which will mean stretching resources again and maybe a further delay with your query.

As for the argument that its poor front line workers that will deal with all my posts, yes that is their job.

But the issues, which I agree with you are very poor, and their Facebook page does not look that great for responses (I agree you have a very valid grievance) are not the customer advisors' fault - they cannot help it if not enough people were hired. By the looks of it there are countless other customers like you and they are not going to be able to just single you out to prioritise. There is nothing wrong with caring about your money by the way - €170 is a lot, plus all the phone-calls you have made which you should not have had to. Could it be ordered through a PC World store?

VinLieger · 17-01-2016 03:33AM

PC world are absolutely shocking, they have no irish dedicated customer service the only number to ring is a UK one. Like with many of these companies the only way to get a reaction is to raise a public stink via twitter and literally going to a store and making an almighty scene

Also I know it's a super douche move and I have worked in CS so have experienced it from that end too but also having experience with PC world in this case it really is the only solution that will get results

lightspeed · 17-01-2016 03:34AM

Azalea wrote: »

Why would you be proud of spamming?

But that will just create more work for them which will mean stretching resources again and maybe a further delay with your query.

But the issues, which I agree with you are very poor, and their Facebook page does not look that great for responses (I agree you have a very valid grievance) are not the customer advisors' fault - they cannot help it if not enough people were hired. By the looks of it there are countless other customers like you and they are not going to be able to just single you out to prioritise. There is nothing wrong with caring about your money by the way - €170 is a lot, plus all the phone-calls you have made which you should not have had to. Could it be ordered through a PC World store?

Im proud to be part of the resistance.

In a fair free market, a company should be efficient and succeed or if it chooses not to be, it should suffer loss of earnings and ultimately bankruptcy. That is not a tragedy, it is a fair and justified development. If customers like me where not to broadcast such poor customer service, then there is a severe likelihood that a company will continue to pursue a strategy like the above until its the industry norm. The end result is corporate profit and performance bonus for top brass increases, jobs not being created where they should be, more pressure on existing workers and customer gets screwed.

Its because of horrible pests like me who will harass them on a daily basis as a result that it will make it more difficult for such companies to intentionally pursue such a strategy. Im very proud of that.

Your wrong that it will take longer for my query to get resolved. I emailed last week and still no reply. I guarantee you ill get a respond on facebook or twitter monday morning. Your failing to understand that this is the norm and how customer service works now. I have worked in customer service and know others in other companies who would agree with me on that.

You are also failing to understand that i dont care so much about my query getting prioritised. We have a small claims court for a reason after all. I care about causing them headache and problems so they accept that they cant just treat customers like dirt and will have to employ more staff if they going to follow strategies of growth.

Like you said, backlog from my posts will likely only worsen the situation and create more backlog. Obviously, this will result in more unhappy customers who will in turn post on facebook, twitter etc. They will then have to hire more staff and remember to do so next year and onwards, or wait until they are so famous for having poor service that it results in loss of sales and thus they have to hire more staff until it improved.

If I didnt take the actions im taking, how else would above be achieved?

Should i trail through Linkedin and see if i can find members of higher management and contact them asking them to care more about quality of service and less about greed an their performance bonuses?

I doubt that would work.

prinzeugen · 17-01-2016 03:51AM

I have worked in customer service and always followed one rule.

Treat everyone as you would like to be treated yourself.

I was face to face and could make stuff happen but I imagine call centres would be hell.

Azalea · 17-01-2016 03:55AM

"Resistance" - lol.

Whatever you say, you're only making things harder for customer service advisors who are not at fault for the delays, not the higher-ups.

There is no guarantee your strategy will cause any of the changes you claim it will either.

And looking at their Facebook, a lot of posts aren't getting answered so I don't know if you can guarantee that you'll have a response on Monday.

They seem pretty bad, but you're lowering yourself too.

Robsweezie · 17-01-2016 04:24AM

Azalea wrote:

"Resistance" - lol.

How dare you belittle his efforts? He's taking a stand just as our forefathers did 100 years ago in the rising. He should be proud, you're a hero OP!

MadsL · 17-01-2016 08:18AM

lightspeed wrote: »

It seems to me that we are going towards the american model of customer service

Hmm..I once returned an item (water pik flosser) to a large American chain retailer as six months after I bought as it broke. They immediately replaced it. I had no receipt but they looked up the transaction by credit card. Nine months later the second replacement broke. Not wanting to buy the same brand again I got full credit for the original purchase and was able to buy a different item, again without keeping my receipt. Good luck trying that in any UK/Irish high street retailer.

On the other hand; Irish Revenue are fantastic, the IRS? ****** **** *****!!!!

DeanAustin · 17-01-2016 10:37AM

I'm always amazed by how little attention/regard most companies give to customer service. They all trot out the clichés about how important customer service is but a lot don't back those hollow statements up. Like much of business, short term thinking is rewarded and the sale to a new customer matters far more than maintaining an existing customer.

I do think the OP is going OTT with his spamming and "resistance" comments though. Make your point but don't be obnoxious about it.

Azalea · 17-01-2016 03:59PM

DeanAustin wrote: »

I'm always amazed by how little attention/regard most companies give to customer service. They all trot out the clichés about how important customer service is but a lot don't back those hollow statements up. Like much of business, short term thinking is rewarded and the sale to a new customer matters far more than maintaining an existing customer.

Where are you getting this from?

In my experience companies do care about customer service but sometimes are not very good at running things or have to encounter obstacles from other parties they deal with, e.g. contractors who install broadband. It's all very fragmented, which is a big part of the problem. But concern for the customer is of course there - we all care about customers being treated well, why would people who work in that very area not?! They'd lose customers for one. Retention is actually very important.

Advisors are limited though in their powers - sometimes this is mistaken for bad customer service.

DeanAustin · 17-01-2016 04:04PM

Azalea wrote: »

Where are you getting this from?

In my experience companies do care about customer service but sometimes are not very good at running things or have to encounter obstacles from other parties they deal with, e.g. contractors who install broadband. It's all very fragmented, which is a big part of the problem. But concern for the customer is of course there - we all care about customers being treated well, why would people who work in that very area not?! They'd lose customers for one. Retention is actually very important.

Advisors are limited though in their powers - sometimes this is mistaken for bad customer service.

I worked in a customer service department where it was resourced at less than 60% of what was required. The sales line, on the other hand, rarely had a hold time.

Companies are targeted on sales. That's where their focus is. Furthermore, customer service in every company I've worked for has been the entry level job that 90% of the people want to move on from.

P_1 · 17-01-2016 04:05PM

If you're pleasant to me I look after you.

If you're unpleasant to me then everything is done by the book.

You always catch more flies with honey

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 17-01-2016 04:14PM

MadsL wrote: »

Hmm..I once returned an item (water pik flosser) to a large American chain retailer as six months after I bought as it broke. They immediately replaced it. I had no receipt but they looked up the transaction by credit card. Nine months later the second replacement broke. Not wanting to buy the same brand again I got full credit for the original purchase and was able to buy a different item, again without keeping my receipt. Good luck trying that in any UK/Irish high street retailer.

On the other hand; Irish Revenue are fantastic, the IRS? ****** **** *****!!!!

Same can happen in Ireland. I had a similar experience here with a garden shredder. Broke in 6 months. replaced without any hassle, replacement went in under a year,. I told them I had lost confidence in the brand and they fully refunded me without a quibble.

There's good and bad service in all countries. I asked for fries with no salt in a McDonalds in the US once and nearly got thrown out for being awkward. There's no utopia for customer service.

Hammer89 · 17-01-2016 04:21PM

Having spent a while in Canada, the difference between their customer service and ours is simply astounding. I don't know if the people are inherently nicer, or just far better trained to disguise their disdain for work, but either way it makes a massive difference to you, as a shopper, and you're far more likely to return.

Over here, we're a bunch of apathy-laden zombies who don't actually care whether you come back or not - I include myself in this. There's exceptions in both countries, of course, but for the most part Canadians have perfected the whole customer service game, while ourselves, and probably most of Europe, don't care enough to reach that level.

Penny Tration · 17-01-2016 04:25PM

P_1 wrote: »

If you're pleasant to me I look after you.

If you're unpleasant to me then everything is done by the book.

You always catch more flies with honey

This.

I'm pretty sure anyone dealing with clients and customers will do all they can for the nice ones, and do everything 100% to the letter for the shouting, rude ones.

Customer service go to the dogs

Comments