Marks and Sparks shocking customer service

[taz29duffy]

Just that really. Always have been loyal for both food and basic clothing for 20+ years. Yes their fashion has deteriorated but I always rated their selection and customer services...until last week.

Placed an order for £250+ on Thursday. Realised that it automatically was showing as for delivery to my old address (moved 6 weeks ago), so checked on line and it advised to contact them within 30 mins and amendments could be made. I contacted them within 5 minutes and spoke with the most unhelpful and rude assistant I have ever encountered. 50 minutes on the phone and she was unable to assist me (probably because she was so inefficient that she missed the 30min amendment slot. She spoke down to me and talked over me. She placed me on hold multiple times, despite me saying that I would call back. I eventually terminated the call as I had to get children to bed and she immediately called me back and placed me on hold. I was given assurance that someone would contact me the following today to confirm if amendments had occurred. No one contacted me.

I emailed M+S to complain about the attitude I had encountered, received an automatic response to say someone would reply within 48 hours and guess what... 96 hours later and no reply.

I called M+S again this morning after I got a delivery notice from DHL to advise my parcel would be delivered today to....my old address. The man on the phone was at least pleasant and he contacted DHL directly and came back to say that he had arranged for the parcel to come to my new address. 15.30 comes and I get an email to say my parcel has been delivered and I have signed for it....I HAVE NOT RECEIVED IT AND HAVE NOT SGNED FOR IT.... at this point I am losing the will to live.

Phone M+S again and get another incompetent customer service agent (who was reasonably pleasant) who could not explain what had happened or why I had not been contacted, just kept saying "you placed your order as standard delivery so we have up to 5 days to deliver it" I am literally banging my head on a bring wall.

AIBU to swear never to cross the threshold of M+S again and warn all mumsnetters that this once British cornerstone of shopping has went to the wall and is now to be avoided???

Rant over!!!

It’s going to be interesting next year when Ocado start delivering M&S goods. Less people will make a point of popping in to the physical shops, and making impulse purchase while they are there.

Worst company in my book is Bastard Gas.

I can’t complain about M&S my local simply food is fabulous and the staff cannot do enough for you. I luffs them.

That's a shame. Mine really is fantastic

I often visit the local, very large, M&S, for food bargains half an hour before closing at the weekend. I had a stupendous haul by chance once - around £100 vair posh food for £10.

I was mightily put off the reduced bakery section when I saw two staff bagging up a few pastries by picking them up with bare hands. Even worse, they were both using the labelling machine and moving the trolley along too. This, despite multiple tongs which it is requested customers use for hygiene purposes...

I politely questioned this - told “we’ve been trained to do it this way”

Email to customer services - non specific apology adressed “Hi Quince!”, when I had signed myself “Dr Q surname” - grrr!

Next visit, bare hand yucky ness again - I politely questioned this - told “we’ve been trained to do it this way”

Further email reply stated use of gloves can result in lower than expected levels of hygiene - yes, I know that, which is why I suggested the tongs, ffs!

No change next visit - give up.
Not so long ago, M&S staff would call you Madam, and wouldn’t need to have basic hygiene explained...

It's a shame you've had service like this from a house hold name of M&S! The hsrd part of contacting them via the phone is the calls are split between the UK and South Africa call center. Sadly the quality suffers when production is taken abroad, but who would pay the prices for UK made clothing? Money is money

I only shop at M&S if I have to due to their appalling customer service in recent years.

One incident sent DS some links to some jewelry sets (necklace & earings) for him to select one for my birthday. He ordered all I had sent the links to so I ended up with three sets all in sealed bags/packs. I phoned M&S online and was advised to take them to my local store with the delivery note for an exchange, which I did.
I chose some items in the store for the exchange and queued up at the Customer service desk.
The assistant listened to me said nothing and proceeded to take the jewellry out of the sealed bags and the earings out of their further little sealed bags, she then looked at me and said "we can't exchange earings, company policy, you may have worn them"
I was speechless and asked her how she thought I may have worn them and then resealed them into heat sealed wrappers that were exactly the same as the manufacturers had.
After 10 minutes of her repeating "Its not company policy" me arguing that M& S online said I could, and everyone in the queue "looking" I insisted on seeing her manager to which I was told "You can't it's her day off"
I lost it then and hissed loudly "that there must be someone who was senior to her here, as she was in need of supervision"
30 minutes later I was attended to by a young man in a suit and was allowed to exchange.
The stupid thing is anyone can try on the earings that are on display on the shop floor and the are there for the purpose of being sold, and don't come in sealed packs.
The customer service in the Marble Arch store is truly awful, they are openly rude to you if you ask for an item in another colour/size or ask about the location of various items in the store.

I had similar with M and S two years ago and don’t even get me started with Next. Good experiences with JL though. Just wondering if it’s DHL who are the problem as I have had problems with them too!

I'm leaving 3 mobile as soon as my contract runs out. No signal at home whatsoever, and I contacted them many times (always politely) no help at all. I recently got a letter saying they had made their final attempt to improve signal and had nothing further to proposed. They told me I could contact the Ombudsman but then said it probably wouldn't help. It was so insulting. I then had emails saying I could improve signal followed by a text saying it wouldn't be possible.

I know it's rude but literally the favourite thing in my life and is the only thing I do knowing that it's a shit person move is to just straight away hang up on someone once I realise they are a total idiot.

I reason that I often have people who are really good in customer service - kind, helpful, easy to comprehend and I've accidentally hung up on them by accident (my phone is a nightmare). I sort of channel that vibe and think - they have no idea if it's a total accident or not and I refuse to waste my time for 5 minutes when they are stupid or uncooperative. Sometimes you do just know it's not going to go well. Of course, this issue wouldn't work if the problem was me and not them, or I would never be able to talk to anyone!

Just passing on a very ill mannered top tip

Besides the point but in general, if you've submitted an order and need to revise it, it's always better to quickly create a new (correct) one and cancel the old one.

Revised orders are off the happy path and almost always wind up somehow fucked.

The Internet has given customers unrealistic expectations of deliveries and what is humanly possible. Good companies that treat their staff well and ethically source goods can't compete with Amazon, but Amazon are shockingly bad employers who pay very little tax on the profits they make. Carry on and you will lose physical stores, which would be a tragedy.

I broke my tooth on a really large piece of grit in an M&S salad some years ago.
I sent the grit, the empty salad bag, receipt and even the piece of tooth (all as requested). I sent them in a sealed Jiffy bag, registered post.
They denied receiving them and basically accused me of making it up for 'compensation'. Grrr.

I had my Wedding list with JL. They left a number of parcels in my front garden. They were stolen. The manager of the Edinburgh store said: 'well, if you will live on an estate...'. It took months to get a refund and was quite upsetting as we had been bought these items as gifts by elderly relatives.

My DH had the phone slammed down on him at the weekend by a Sky person. He rang with one of those ‘courtesy calls’ which is just an excuse to try and sell you a more expensive package. He politely told them that we were happy with the one we had, but he kept insisting that we needed more. DH kept insisting we didn’t, the bloke lost his temper and slammed the phone down.

British Gas are abysmal. They cancel long booked service appointments with no notice and seem unable to actually attend an appointment. We found someone far better who actually do the job you pay them for.

M&S have always been dodgy around their sizing, but they’re now ridiculous. I did have a helpful lady last week though, who went out of her way to find an item for me. But in general, their quality is poor and their food overpriced. Often inferior quality too.

John Lewis can be comedy bad.

Their suppliers who do customer repairs for them - eg PCs and tech - cringe at how they behave.

Agreed. No evidence of them trying to retain customer loyalty; no 'service'.

@taz29duffy

YANBU.

It's about time M & S was put out to pasture, along with W H Smiths. It's a terrible place. Overpriced, rubbish stock. Only appeals to over 60s/baby boomers, very expensive, and only average quality (nowhere near as good as it used to be.)

I have several bras and half a dozen pairs of underpants that I have had since 1999/2000, that are still in OK condition. Despite many years of wearing. Faded yeah, but still intact. The bras and underpants I have got from M & S only 2 years ago are in bits.

The quality of much of their stock is substandard now, and it's still expensive.

Haven't spent more than £30 in there in 10 years. After the state my last 2 bras and 7 pairs of underpants are that I haven't worn that much, I won't ever shop there again.

House of Fraser, Debenhams, and John Lewis are also no longer fit for purpose. Overpriced, outdated, and just generally shit.

The age of the department store is over. They need to wind down, and wrap it all up. Haven't set foot in a Debenhams, a John Lewis, or a House of Fraser, in a decade or more. And only been in M & S once, to buy the underpants and bras that have fallen apart quickly.

It's kinda sad in a way, but times move on, things change, and these type of stores - as I said - are no longer fit for purpose. They need putting out to pasture, and they can take WH Smiths with them.

Can I add Lowri Beck to the list of absolutely shit customer service? nPower use them and LB rearranged an appointment to install new meters three times, with at least 3-4 weeks between appointments. On one occasion they just didn't turn up so I called then directly and the woman on the phone said they had tried to call me and left me a message, which wasn't true. She put me on hold and when I got off the phone I had a voicemail, left during our phone call, from her cancelling the appointment. The 4th time they tried cancelling I called nPower and threatened to switch companies. That seemed to put a rocket up their arses and they called Lowri Beck. Finally I got the meters installed.

Scottish Power customer service is terrible too. They’ve owed me a substantial rebate for six months and I cannot get them to sort out the billing issue and send me a cheque. Nobody ever calls me back and when I pointed that out to one of their reps she said I call too much! I said I’d happily never call them again if they would only sort out the problem, or, failing that, call me back when they say they will, or, you know, at all. I’ve taken them to the Ombudsman and they’ve just ignored the deadline set by them to sort my account, so I feel I’m no further forward.

I asked to speak to the manager recently. They said there wasn’t one. They couldn’t give me an email address to complain to.

John Lewis went down the toilet as well, a few years ago. Never again.

It's the online stuff. Rude, unpleasant 'customer service'. No thank you.

The most awful customer service I have experienced recently is Grand Central Trains. Do NOT EVER buy a ticket on their app. The app doesn't work properly and the tickets can just DISAPPEAR off the interface. And they give no shits. Absolutely NO shits at all. (I am actually a programmer and have figured out their bug but as they give no shits I shall not be sharing this with them.)

They basically just told me to piss off when I complained. They just told me I was wrong and explained to me how to use their shitty app. I was not using it wrong. It's broken; it's actually not fully functional. Lol, I asked to escalate the complaint and she just said, escalate to whom? I think it might just be that woman, in the whole "customer service" department!

I'll never ever buy a ticket from them again. I urge you ALL to avoid them. It's not worth the risk. Sooooo fucking embarassing, sitting there on the train with my completely empty app, trying to explain to the conductor that I honestly had bought a ticket and activated it and even gone on the outward journey successfully but now the entire app was empty (and you can't add the ticket to your Apple Wallet like other ticket apps).

Yep, experienced appalling customer service in M&S. Not only did I used to shop in one of their food halls regularly, but we banked with them too, so I’d get a lot of reward vouchers which I always saved up for Christmas.

Went in at the crack of dawn on Xmas eve a few years back, DCs in tow, and did a massive shop. Place was rammed but people being v nice despite it clearly being a right stressy PITA for everyone. Got to the till and unloaded and repacked everything, then tried to pay with so-called fucking ‘reward’ vouchers. Wouldn’t go through. Till bloke tries everything, is v apologetic and calls the supervisor. She also can’t put the vouchers through, but keeps giving me the side eye, then proceeds to treat me as though I’m some kind of arch criminal and keeps saying really loudly, in front of the whole heaving massive queue of people, “these vouchers are invalid, they’ve already been spent, you can’t pay with these”. Tried to argue that they hadn’t in fact been spent, there was obviously some fault with the codes, but she was having none of it.

Never been so humiliated anywhere, ever. Luckily the other customers clearly thought she was being a dick and were super lovely and sympathetic, as was the guy on the till, who was mortified and kept on and on apologising. Paid on a card and left. It really upset and flustered me and ruined the start of Christmas.

Later sent the vouchers to head office with a pretty hacked off letter about the whole thing. They replaced the vouchers. They did not apologise. They did not acknowledge their error. They did not do anything else to make amends.

They do not get my custom any more. Fuckers.

I now always Google the email address of the CEO and complain to them. Anyone can do it.

If you say you've been let down by (a) their company, and (b) their useless, rude 'customer service', they put their own team onto it and you get a better service.

I've done it with John Lewis and BT. And B&Q, come to think of it.

I must say M&S staff let me change my son's school shirts to a larger size today even though I'd lost the receipt yesterday and were helpful.

Sky customer service is the worst of the lot.
Seems like it's gone down the pan completely over the last 5 years.
Worst experience I've ever had was with Ryanair- trying to complain that my son had a boiling microwave meal tipped in his lap by a faulty tray.

I've had issues with three different train companies... I've put the fear of God into them because they haven't provided the disabled assistance requested... I now have a named person at each railway company now to deal with. One company in particular have really upped their game and go over and above to make sure my son gets the assistance requested.