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!'

@AnoDeLosMuertos

It if you’re in customer services you are being PAID to sort out problems, whatever they are!

But you’re not paid to be treated like a chicken in a factory farm and treated like you aren’t a human being either.

Royal Mail seem to be an occasional service where I live. I don't think they bother covering sickness and holidays. Maybe at most swap someone from somewhere else for a day if it has gone on a few days? First class post taking over 5 days to me.

Using covid as an excuse only washed with me for the first few months, ever since it just induces an eye roll. We have to adapt to this new way of living, it’s been 18 months ffs. It just feels like an excuse to provide crap service.

Havent work in customer service for a while but agree with the customer needs to complain to higher up. No point moaning to front of house staff the boss wont listen to them.
I really enjoyed taking a customer to our big boss when he came on a visit once and said "ah here's the man in charge if you direct your comments at him he has the power to make up happy"
Let one of the big bosses deal with pointless stuff we were supposed to do.
Customer service is shit because the big bosses dont want to make lives of their staff and customers easier if it means they might lose a couple of pence profit.

Given your example, really, they should have worn that as a loss and despatched right away. Presumably, their courier would return the item eventually and it should be their job to chase, not yours.

Two months ago we ordered sofas from DFS. They were due to be ready on June 13 but we didn't hear anything. Logged in to check them this weekend to find they've been completed and are 'awaiting delivery' but that I should have telepathically have known to contact them to arrange this. Online booking service not working currently. Spent 45 minutes on hold on Saturday before giving up and requesting a call back, and another half an hour this morning before doing the same. No calls back as yet.

It's utterly infuriating. DH is saying 'oh moan about them on Twitter and then they'll swing into action' but it's just rubbish this is what you have to do with companies right now to get anything to happen.

Before all this i loved online shopping but all I've had is issues the past 18mnths. And trying to speak to a real person has been like finding a four leaf clover, chat bots boil my blood. Im done online shopping now, im a convert to the high street, and i have to say so far I've had nothing but good service from a real person.

Yes. Bought a bed from John Lewis (their own brand). It was delivered with rusty / corroded bolts. Contacted them the same day. They replied to say that the issue would be dealt with by the supplier. Haven't heard a peep out of them two weeks later. Have chased JL several times who to be fair have been very nice and apologetic but it's still not getting the issue sorted as the supplier won't respond.

I think COVID is still causing supply issues and we have Brexit to adjust to as well. Some countries have tougher COVID restrictions because they are in a worse position

It’s like when sky wouldn’t talk to any customers that weren’t vulnerable we’re paying too and deserved the same service

I work on a till - I was offered a post on Customer Services but refused as I’d witnessed the abuse my colleagues had to endure. They had hoovers thrown at them, the lot! Luckily I haven’t had very many nasty customers at the checkout but I think my own attitude goes a long way to help with that. I strive to be ultra polite & ultra apologetic when it’s needed. Sometimes that can shame people into being nicer!

Yeah, looking at you Nissan main dealer with the blurb on your website about how good your customer service is. Didn’t seem to stop you losing the service history to my new (second hand) van and ignoring all my emails chasing it up, did it? .

On the other hand, kudos to the small company that sells specialist supplies for my work (AS Handover, if anybody’s interested). If there’s ever a mistake in an order they will bend over backwards to put things right.

It's hard at the minute, it really is.
My job technically isn't customer service, it's taking bookings. Which seems to have translated recently into "you lot answer the phone so anything but bookings"

I've been in my job 4 years and never cried at work before, since covid I've had three customers make me cry, one this morning for something that was absolutely nothing to do with me and I had no way of resolving it. They called me pathetic, useless and took my name so they could "plaster it all over google reviews"
Every call is a problem which does affect morale as like I said, my job is bookings and when you aren't doing that...

I'm experiencing both good and bad at the moment. BooHoo appalling and refusing to give me back money they have taken when an order hasn't actually gone through. Amazon Pay pretty much perfect from two different people, genuinely excellent.

I agree with Iquitit and others that companies make a lot of promises that they don't actually give staff the resource to keep. I'm really tired of 'new procedures to keep you safe' advertised on their website that both doesn't happen and seems to lead to even less communication.

I think some businesses are pushing what they can get away with more by cutting staff and services even further, and with others it's the same old but after a year+ without it, it's hard to remember that some businesses can be so illogical in things like being able to alert staff when at the desk (I know hotel and retail staff dealing with not having working buzzers and the cranky customers this causes) or 'during busy times, it may take us up to 4 days to send you the information' doesn't actually mean that, but that we'll have to start chasing it up in 4 days.

I recently had a warranty protection canceled after having an engineer our to look my dryer. No idea why, no idea if it's been canceled because they're going to replace it or because they've found a loop hole and I'll have to replace it myself, the lack of communication from businesses that advertise their good communication (with added caveat that due to COVID, this may take longer) and make promises that don't come to fruition is getting draining.

It if you’re in customer services you are being PAID to sort out problems, whatever they are!

This just isn't true though. I worked customer service for an internet provider for a while and the number of people that thought it was my problem that their tv wouldn't connect to the internet or that the wifi wouldn't go through their hollow core floor etc was ridiculous. The abuse I got because I don't know how every single tv works or because they were having a problem with their phone, like this was anything to do with me. People are utterly stupid and can't comprehend that when you are getting internet on all of your other devices but not on your phone for example then it is a problem with your phone, not the internet, therefore that is a you problem, nothing to do with me and screaming at me isn't suddenly going to make it work.

@PawsQueen 💐 and everyone else who has had a similar day,which sadly is all too frequent.

I'm sorry you're facing that @PawsQueen

I think that what most people don't get is that it's one incident for them, in a day, and they get upset about it and feel aggrieved if they feel someone has been rude, or they've not been treated with an ounce of decency. Just once, in that day, and as the customer, you're in the stronger position too - you can do something about it and at least will probably get an apology.

Being on the other side, you're getting it multiple times a day, as well as grief from above, in the weaker position as staff/employee, and there's no redress. It does affect mental health, and that affects how people perform, like it or not.

Customer service staff are humans, and being paid to be one does not remove the effect being abused, sworn at, threatened and treated like dirt has, and the expectation that it should is very widely held, and it's wrong imo.
Are we saying because you part with money for something that you then are entitled to treat the people that are paid to deliver that service etc how you please? You're paying for an item or service, not a part of someone's soul. If you don't get that item or service, then by all means address it, I'm not saying don't complain, because that will get us nowhere, but increasingly people are treating a missed side off a meal, or an error of some description as the end of the world and behaving as such.

And this

They called me pathetic, useless and took my name so they could "plaster it all over google reviews"
Needs addressing.
It's appalling that customers can do this, for any reason they choose, and no, it absolutely should not just be part of the job, at all. Working in customer service does not mean you should have to give up any right to privacy.

A couple of months ago I saw the CEOs of two large supermarkets interviewed following the release of CCTV of some instances of abuse - and still to my mind they gave platitudes after they'd just watched shop assistants punched, or having bottles of wine lobbed at them. Can you imagine the uproar and the fall out if that were the other way around?!

@Iquitit it's not even bad service which is the frustrating part. It's stuff like.. for example you ring the hairdresser, and they don't have an appointment for a month. Customers at the moment are going absolutely ballistic at that and blaming WFH/Covid. We are just fully booked 🤷🏽‍♀️
Not even management can fix that because it's not an error, it just is what it is
I've honestly felt like a punch bag for people all day

@AllEffingHopeless

Royal Mail seem to be an occasional service where I live. I don't think they bother covering sickness and holidays. Maybe at most swap someone from somewhere else for a day if it has gone on a few days? First class post taking over 5 days to me.

Same here plus they get the roads mixed up think Cathy's road and cart road sort of names obviously different but because the first two letters are the same the postman gets it mixed up the people who live same house number but not the same road KEEP my post when its delivered by accident this is apparently not royal mails problem and I should "discuss" it with the other road.....I've tried she answered the door in my pyjamas and denied they had been delivered there 🙄

I work in customer service, and I love my job.. I really do.

But, at the moment, its either the best job in the world, or its absolutely soul destroying.

On a bad day I am nothing more than a human punchbag for customers to verbally abuse, and always over things that are not my fault, and that I personally cannot change or have any control over. I don't make the rules.. On anything! I just get paid to adhere to them! I'm utterly utterly powerless.

People appear to forget that when they abuse retail staff that it might just be one incident in their day, but for that staff member on that front line you are just one more person in a long line of people who have had a go at them that day. Swore at them. Called them names. Told them they were stupid. Thrown things at them. Etc etc.

And it takes a toll. Your confidence declines, your mental health declines.. Many a day I find myself fighting back the tears as I deal with someone else speaking to me like I'm just a peice of shit.

In fact one day I had to leave the shop floor, in tears, because a string of aggressive and abusive customers just broke me. There I was, standing outside the shop, sobbing, and still I had a parade of customers coming up to me asking for help, as the tears were streaming down my face and I was in obvious distress. No respect, no humanity, no compassion. But still, in the eyes of the public I am the one who is the problem.

And all this for pennies above minimum wage, no overtime rate, no bank holiday rate, no time off in lieu.. And always the worry that some customer complaint will see me unemployed.

Sometimes I wonder why I continue to do it, and then I remember that it's because I genuinely want to help people, and to be kind and nice to them. That stuff actually makes me happy.

Yes, I am utterly responsible for my attitude at work. 100 %. But from where I am standing the customer has often forgotten that they too are responsible for their attitude to me.

I'm not a human punchbag, I have feelings, and I am worn down, tired, frustrated and fragile just like you are.

If it costs me nothing to be kind to you, then what does it really cost you to be kind to me and see/treat me as your equal?

Or is that too much to ask?

For rhose suffering verbal abuse, are you getting support from your management

There is support of sorts. Management will reassure you, give you time to recover, and there is in house mental health provision of sorts. But what REALLY needs to happen imo is a genuine zero tolerance policy regarding abuse towards staff. You shout, scream, insult, abuse, threaten then you are escorted from the premises, you lose your right to purchase, and you do not get it back until you amend your behaviour. Yes companies would lose some sales, but people would soon realise they meant business and a lot of it would stop. Instead we outwardly have a sign saying that we have the right to work without tolerating abuse, but the practical reality is the customer gets to behave how they like with little or no sanctions.

Do you have a union at all - or staff rep? If so, I'd raise it with them

Ask your manager this - is it good business practice to have someone in the shop screaming and hurling abuse?

Firstly, no, because the time it takes to sort it out, often involving more than one member of staff and more senior staff.

No, because you are taking good service away from loyal customers who quietly shop and spend over £200 per week.

No, because of the cost of refunding or giving vouchers to get them out of the shop.

No, because it is unpleasant for other customers to witness and may drive them elsewhere.

And no because you cannot put a price on your staff's mental health.