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!!!

What has happened to these companies. They employ such incompetent staff. Had a similar issue with M&S last Christmas: DHL claimed they were unable to find our address so the order just never materialised and then items were out of stock by the time I'd made several phone calls to request a refund.
More recently Curry's took the money for our TV order, plus extra for named delivery slot. They then said it had been delivered and signed for on three different days and didn't turn up on the day we waited in. When we complained about the lack of TV and their refusal to refund us they investigated our complaint and said they couldn't refund us until the TV was returned to the warehouse. In the same letter they said the TV was out of stock. So it seemed we would never get a refund as there was no TV to return by their own admission.
Took about two weeks and numerous calls and emails until we emailed the CEO directly....48 hours later had an apology, a refund and £75 compensation.

I ordered 6 mugs and collected from the local M & S, the box they packed them in was big enough for a coffee table, they make such a song and dance about waste and packaging

Janicejaniceahmfallin, that actually made me shiver. How humiliating, omg!

I think it's just so much worse when they give you the brush off because it makes you realise they must just create these situations for their customers all the time. It could easily happen again because they are so blatantly indifferent and so obviously not prepared to do anything about it. So then you end up just completely dumping the company because you don't want to roll the dice with them again. Definitely realised with Grand Central that it was only luck it hadn't happened before.

l ordered a sports bra a while ago from M & S. Got notification that it was in store to collect, l picked it up within the hour of the notification.
Two days later, same notification that it was in store to collect. As it happened, it didn't fit so l took it back to return it. When l took it to the returns desk, they said l couldn't return it as l hadn't collected it. l was standing there with the item on the counter. l showed them the notification texts l'd had. Fortunately another (presumably more experienced) sales person appeared, and she worked out that when l'd picked it up, it hadn't actually been flagged on the system as collected. Which they needed to do before l could return it. l was told it "might take a while, do you have any more shopping to do?"
l'd only parked for an hour. but bless her, she tried, and she was able to get it sorted out for me.
lt's hardly rocket science. l used to work in M & S. lt's not that difficult to flag items as collected by the customer on their systems.

Agree- m and s terrible customer service. I won't tell my story as very long involving being passed from pillar to post and back again. Clueless staff I store and online. Morrisons customer service also appalling. In recent months have switched to Asda-their staff and customer service is amazing! Anytime you ask a member of staff for a product they all bend over backwards to help and all seem happy. Tesco- still waiting after nearly a year and several emails back and forth and still no final outcome.

Oh, I bought a Neom three wick candle from them online a couple of Christmases ago. Except it had no wicks. Fine, these things happen. It took me an hour and a half having to explain exactly why a wickless candle was no use. They eventually said I could send it back at my own expense to be “tested”, but if their tests found it to be non-faulty I wouldn’t be refunded.

Next day drove an hour to nearest Simply Food. Woman at customer service counter took one look at it, stifled a laugh and refunded my money.

Tweet them with a link to this thread.

I haven't had any real problems with M & S about delivery. Although only last week I was ordering stuff and couldn't get the 20% discount to register. I used the chat line and fixed in a minute
Perhaps that works betrer than phoning or messaging these days.

Oh I tried messenger as well!!! I wasted a lot of time on it but just got platitudes like ‘I’m sorry this has happened’ but no resolution

No one has mentioned the packaging, manpower and money wasted by customers ordering lots of dresses etc and then returning the whole lot; trying to return items they've used and abused and then kicking off when refused a refund. Not to mention their rudeness, physical threats and verbal abuse.

Well, I mean. I'm sorry customers are bad but I haven't done any of those things?

Really this is how businesses go wrong. If you're of the mindset that your customers are your enemies then of course you will treat them all badly. And then the ones who aren't crazy/abusive/dishonest will obviously just shop somewhere else, because who wants that sort of interaction? I don't want genuflection but I do expect to be held innocent until proven guilty when buying a pair of sodding trousers!

Recently ordered flowers from M&S which were poor. Emailed them to complain, they offered replacement flowers or refund. I shop mostly at Amazon now, they are really good and never any problems with refunds or queries.

Back in the day, M&S was known for outstanding customer service. Goods were exchanged or refunds given without a quibble. I think thats why we are so outraged when standards fall so short now.

M&S employees were well trained and felt valued, and that was reflected in the service they gave. I doubt they are treated any better than other retail staff now, plus they are dealing with some very different customers. No excuse for poor customer service, but I can see why its gone downhill. 😠

I think quality control for some middling to higher end brands is awful. When you’re paying slightly more for an item you expect a degree of quality control. We got a lovely furniture set from boori. The quality control was utterly appalling and it took us months of getting replacements before we were happy as they were often waiting on parts shipping from China. It must have cost them a fortune as we kept getting full sets of things we didn’t need and they kept using the same piss poor packaging that caused the damage in the first place. The customer service though to try and sort it out was really good.

When we got married we had our wedding list at John Lewis but so many of the China items had imperfections. Again it took a us months of swaps before getting a full set of decent things. The customer service was good in sorting it out but a lot of the brands must just take an approach of sending out the crap and hoping that no-one notices but it is a poor experience when you’re paying a premium.

Bensons For beds has some of the most appalling customer services I’ve ever seen though. You can be on the phone for hours without anyone answering. I’d never order from them again on that basis alone.

I have never misused M+S or returned things in a poor state. I generally only order necessities on line eg beauty products, underwear, sleepwear etc that I won't have to return as I can't be bothered with the hassle. That said I spend at least £200/ week in foothall and will now be going elsewhere. As you can tell I am still ranting!!!

Really this is how businesses go wrong. If you're of the mindset that your customers are your enemies then of course you will treat them all badly

Exactly. When did the shift occur from treating people as valued customers to assuming everyone’s on the take? Even the big brands that were renowned for having great service seemed to have adopted this as their default. Just another nail in the coffin of the high street, because why bloody bother when you’ve got behemoths like Amazon, who as a company are money-grabbing, monopolising, tax-avoiding, bad employer arseholes but basically offer speed and service that’s second to none, so in the end you just give in and use them for everything. So sad.

Anyhow, sidetracked there, but just popped on to second a PP’s comments about Asda. Totally brilliant customer service and the only company I’ve ever written to to thank them for how much their employees had gone out of their way to help me. Proving things can still be done well by a big organisation if they care at all about where their business comes from.

The thing is, because Primark et al are so cheap I think people are more prepared to take their chances with them and expect sizing and quality issues. With the likes of M & S and John Lewis you pay more and so expect better service.

Obviously I should start another thread but I have no idea who M & S think their customer base is. I hardly ever see young people shopping in there, but I went in to try and buy a couple of items - micro mini skirts on offer and dresses in a weird sort of nylon material which made me break out in a sweat just looking at them.

MrsFezziwig That exactly it. You let things slide if they are cheap. For the first time in ages, I ordered from M&S as I needed a new outfit at the last minute and they did next day delivery. There were a few nice bits that I found but they cocked up delivery and it came too late to use. Out of principle, I was so pissed off I just rejected the delivery and sent everything back but their customer agents couldn’t find where the parcel had gone so I spent hours chasing them to see if I might get my delivery and they just didn’t know. That to me is a structural issue rather than the individual staff being useless (some were and some were really good).

They're awful, they wouldn't take back a food item I returned despite it being faulty and just said they cant resell it and could only exchange for the same awful product again despite having receipt and only having purchased under and hour before. Anywhere else has the 'if you're not satisfied please return for a full refund' moto but not awkward m and s

And while I’m on a roll... their stock levels for popular Kids items are appalling. Just tried to order some girls leggings and so many are sold out. I heard there were issues with uniform supply as well. Even something like Disney princess pants (always going to be popular with little girls) are often no or low stock. They have new frozen ones that are already out of stock before the film has even been released.

Errrrr. You should have made sure the delivery address was correct when placing the order 🤷‍♀️

I third PP's comments about Asda. Their delivery service is shockingly shit here but in store they are fab. The staff make an effort to chat you in a way that feels genuine and I've never had an issue or felt questioned when returning something. Even the customers in our local store are nice! I often get stopped by other customers who wants to coo over DD in the trolley. I think it's the atmosphere of the store. The staff are lovely, so the customers feel valued and in turn they are happy while shopping and nice to one other.

Not the case in our local Tesco Extra however where the staff chat to one another instead and rarely even tell you the total to pay. They just stare expectantly at you for you card.

I always buy school shoes from M&S. But this time I ordered a pair and they had all all weird bumps in the sole when it hadn't been glued properly. Obviously very uncomfortable. So I ordered another pair. Same thing.

My little boy loves the style of the shoes and they fit him so well, so I persevered but it was only the fourth pair I ordered that was ok...

I'm keeping the receipt for these as I'm very concerned about quality control!

Oh and I really like tesco! Both online and in store are really good where I live! I just wish they'd bring back their online shopping for clothes back.