Anyone else just had relentlessnessly crap customer service recently?

[OrangeSharked]

Bit of a rant really but prior to covid I would say I rarely had a reason to contact customer services. But recently I've just had problem after problem after problem with things, normally parcels. When I try to talk to customer services all you get are platitudes, its often impossible to actually get someone to look into or sort out an issue. I'm just sick of being patronised or brushed off by customer services.

Anyone else finding that customer service from companies just gets worse and worse? I understand these are big companies that don't really give a shit about their customers, but still. I miss the days when you could call a companies customer services and get anything other than a 'sorry about this, unfortunately there's nothing we can do!'

Customer service in general has gone downhill. I can’t bear it when people carry on talking to their colleagues whilst serving customers. It’s so rude. When I worked in retail/service industry this was an absolute no-no.

100% with you. Had an issue with an item that has broken after 3 months and had a 5 year warranty apparently. Contacted retailer and they told me wear and tear isn't covered. Wear and tear after 3 months! I had to then threaten with trading standards before they would "look at it". It just seems constant at the moment as we have had a few things broken on delivery as well.

I'm getting a bit fed up of the 'cos covid' excuse. For everything.

From the other side of this I work in a service industry and customer attitudes are getting worse and worse. I've never had so much abuse in my life. Last month we had to call the police for an aggressive customer

Yup. Ordered sterling silver hooped earrings for daughter's birthday from small shop through notonthehighstreet. Paid extra to have bow and card on top so didn't open them. When she did they were badly tarnished so we returned them and asked for a refund 'we'll refund if we have to but don't know why you didn't just polish them' was the answer. I was almost speechless!

Yep, I was spoken to like shit by an Argos employee last week. I bought an extension lead a couple of months ago and have used it as directed but it suddenly exploded, tripped my electrics and stopped working.

The woman immediately looked at me like I was an inconvenience when I walked in and when I explained the issue she sighed and tutted, moaning ‘well, I’m supposed to check these things when it’s electrical but I can’t just now’. She huffed and looked around her for a while, then decided to refund me.

I'm a customer service manager for a retail company and cannot begin to explain the amount of sheer rudeness we've had to deal with over the past 12 months. I've rang our security team and the police to remove customers more in the past 12 months than I have throughout my whole career. It's getting to the point where dealing with a nice customer is less common than dealing with others. Its such a shame and I love my job! But I will not be spoken to, or have any of my members of staff spoken to in a threatening or aggressive manner.

Tbh I've had really good customer service recently. Most staff I've encountered have been very obviously fed up and a little patience goes a long way.

Even if you've experienced rudeness @Beehappy21 its not an excuse to give poor service to polite customers

I am not being rude, I'm not complaining. I am asking to sort out issues with products or orders. Things like orders saying they were delivered and handed to me when they've not turn up 4 days later. Orders getting lost, faulty products etc.

Instead of being given solutions I am just given bland, patronising statements over and over that don't address my problem. And as a customer its really frustrating to be fobbed off, I am not thick.

Id have said about 5 years ago I always had good customer service so things have definitely gone downhill.

If a customer is rude or aggressive I obviously don't condone it. But equally this is not the fault of the majority of customers, and is essentially nothing to do with me.

Unfortunatley, you don't know what these colleagues have dealt with previously, and as much as you should put a happy face on for the next customer, these staff are just people, and sometimes that can be hard. I don't think I've came across anyone who enjoys disappointing customers and usually doing so creates x2 as much work for yourself anyway.. I just think so many front facing staff genuinely have their hands tied atm, companys rightly or wrongly have put in measures in place which do make our jobs twice as hard. It's the same with anything, people are so quick to shout about the bad but not the good. I'm just offering a point of view from another perspective 🤷‍♀️ I hope you get your issues sorted swiftly x

@KitBot

From the other side of this I work in a service industry and customer attitudes are getting worse and worse. I've never had so much abuse in my life. Last month we had to call the police for an aggressive customer

Ever thought that maybe the two things are linked?

I had a worker in a supermarket shout at me from the checkout because I dared to shift my trolley an inch in the line i wasn’t moving forward or back just slightly shifting position so those walking around could get past easier. That’s fine apparently in the name of covid but it would be different if I shouted at her

@amusedbush

Yep, I was spoken to like shit by an Argos employee last week. I bought an extension lead a couple of months ago and have used it as directed but it suddenly exploded, tripped my electrics and stopped working.

The woman immediately looked at me like I was an inconvenience when I walked in and when I explained the issue she sighed and tutted, moaning ‘well, I’m supposed to check these things when it’s electrical but I can’t just now’. She huffed and looked around her for a while, then decided to refund me.

Argos customer service is absolutely appalling. And their prices are even competitive. Not exactly sure why people shop there any more. I certainly won't.

I agree, i have had some shocking customer service. Worst have been JD, persimmon and argos.
I have also had some amazing customer service mainly from local shops and by amazing i mean polite and happy to help. I do not have high expectations, having worked in customer service for years i know it is hard but in the case of persimmon being told tough luck on something that massively affected me due to them not logging a job early enough it really pissed me off. Even saying sorry and admitting they had made a mistake would have made it kind of ok. Up until this point despite peoples perception of persimmon they had been great.

No. Companies such as Hermes are as shit as ever, but even then it's the company, not the individual at fault. I don't work with the general public, and from my outside perspective I would say for every occasion I have witnessed less than exemplary customer service, I've witnessed 19 customers being complete twats. I don't find it at all surprising that when they get to the 20th genuine issue they are out of fucks to give.

No, we don’t know what staff have had to put up with earlier on the day that you contact them. Equally, they don’t know how your day has been and what has brought that customer to the point of annoyance with the situation they’re in.

It’s not good enough when items break or fail to work properly and no one will admit to there being a fault. Good customer service would acknowledge that it’s wrong and try to put it right. We’ve had very good customer service from ao.com and very bad service (ongoing) from the insurance company dealing with a household claim.

A lot of customer service staff realised during the pandemic that their jobs deserved a bit more respect

Also that they don't get paid nearly enough to be every customer's daily 'happy' 'smile' and fix-it-for-you person. So staff stopped being friendly, and the organised fix it people left for better paid jobs.

Employers need to increase wages to attract people prepared to do a tough job and still provide the friendliness on top.

BT have lost the plot recently. I always paid over the odds thinking ah well at least they have good customer service. No more!

@Beehappy21 its not that they are rude. Its that there is genuinely no customer service, they can't seemingly sort out any issue. Just offer a basic platitude. 'I am sorry this has happened but we can't do anything'. The point of customer service is surely to help sort out problems?

For example my billing address and delivery address are different. A company tried to deliver to my billing address with my delivery addresses postcode, inevitably this parcel was not deliverable. This was their mistake as I checked my original email which showed being delivered to my correct address. I tried to contact the delivery company, no avail. I tried to contact the company who I ordered from. Nothing they can do just wait for it to return to depot. Could I cancel and reorder? No, because they needed to receive the goods for refund. No acknowledgement of the fact I would need to receive the goods in order to return them. No acknowledgement of the fact it was their mistake.

If someone has been rude that doesn't give you an excuse to not do your job to another customer. Tbh I'm not blaming the individual employees, I'm assuming its the company that has prevented the customer service employee sorting this out.

@OrangeSharked you've hit the nail on the head there! Some companys prevent their staff doing the right thing by the customer, whether it's to save money or because of covid (12 months after reopening in some cases!) or whatever reason... either way it's unfortunate for the customer, nobody else 😔 Like I say, fingers crossed you're sorted soon 🙂

Getting fed up with the covid excuse.

Like at work they have overcharged us on electricity, no response to innumerable emails, saying they haven't got a copy of our contract despite being sent it repeatedly. Eventually woman is rude and blames covid. But I call her on that, and say no, covid is no excuse for x and x and x. She can't respond because what I say is the truth. Eventually I sort it.

Yes an entire week of it with multiple companies, right down to my wedding caterer telling me she is no longer trading, nine weeks before our sodding wedding, but it's okay because she decided a month ago and was very apologetic that she didn't bother to tell me!!
I have to give credit where credit is due though, the clothing company Black Butterfly not only have given me a refund on a bridesmaid dress I bought over a year ago that now no longer fits said child bridesmaid, but they paid for the return postage on it too. It was like a breath of fresh air!

I’m also a retail manager and it’s not a ‘covid excuse’

It’s a valid reason I’m a lot of cases. Fed up of rude,abusive,aggressive customers