Crap Customer Service

[yphtutor]

AIBU to be thoroughly pissed off with so many companies using COVID for their really really crappy customer service? Can’t get through to anyone, when I do, long message then get cut off! It’s so frustrating. I’m not going to name but a very, normally great customer care airline who cancelled our booking in May, no problem with that totally understand, had to pretend I wanted to make a new booking. Couldn’t get through on the number they supplied for their ‘very valuable customers’ who have had their holidays cancelled (and we haven’t just asked for a refund).
I really think the majority of companies, not all, but definitely most, need to stop using COVID as an excuse for absolutely crap customer service. If I hear one more time I’m working remotely, or please bear with us during this difficult time I will explode. We are all having to deal with this and clearly some, not many, are doing it far better than others.
Stop the excuses 😖

I kind of see where you're coming from, OP. Obviously companies are hugely constrained when staff are working from home but some are very poor in the way they are handling it. I had a kitchen due to be delivered by B and Q during lockdown. They let me know that it would be delivered onto the street so I postponed - the fitter wasn't working at that point either. After restrictions were lifted slightly they emailed out of the blue with a new delivery date but when I checked it was still their policy to leave deliveries outside. Ok, but as the only adult in the household and with 76 boxes coming, some of which were really heavy, it's a bit off imo to just reschedule without checking people are going to manage that. Emails went unanswered and every time I rang I got a really annoying message saying 'We are prioritising our most vulnerable customers at this time,' and then it cut me off! How do they know I'm not their most vulnerable customer before they've even spoken to me?! I think the prospect of having £4K worth of goods dumped outside is pretty important actually. I don't have family nearby and most restrictions were still in place then so I didn't really feel I had anyone I could ask to help me, especially as they don't specify a time slot until the day itself and friends weren't allowed in houses then. I managed to get it sorted but I was left pretty pissed off with B and Q and don't think they covered themselves with glory.

I've also noticed in their stores they keep announcing that they won't be able to help customers with heavy items 'at this time' (annoying phrase). That hasn't affected me but I saw one woman asking for help with heavy bag of gravel stuff and being refused - why? They could lift it for her without her coming near and put it in her car. Makes no sense to me.

But yes, companies are struggling and there are more important things going on of course but I have had similar thoughts to the OP at various times over the last few months.

@heartsonacake

modgepodge Children can eat anything off a menu; there doesn’t need to be a specific children’s menu.

If you think it’s too big and you don’t think they’ll finish it just ask for that meal in a smaller size.

Fair enough. I’m aware children can eat ‘normal’ food (and mine does), but as this is my first child and she’s only just eating properly, I haven’t much experience ordering children’s meals. I have waitressed in the past in a couple of places (a lonnnng time ago!) and have never experienced people doing this so I didn’t know it was a thing. When I questioned if there was a children’s menu I was told ‘no, it’s a case of sharing your meal with them or ordering an adult’s meal for them’, no mention of making anything in a smaller size, but perhaps they’d have done that if I’d asked. Though all ordering was done via an app (one family turned up without a smartphone while we were there and it caused much confusion about how they’d even get a table, let alone order food!) so I don’t know if I could have done this.

What's the refund for op?

Oh Jesus Christ.

Staff are trying to deal with technical issues, they had to work from home at no notice, not everyone lives in a house with high speed internet, security issues means that some folk are struggling to get on, lines can be poor and echo and cut out, it's nothing to do with the vast majority of people not working hard enough. Call centres normally have floor walkers to help with issues at the time rather than staff having to try phone a supervisor or email and wait. Some staff are young folk trying to work from their family home with parents trying to work also plus maybe younger siblings trying to home school. They may have children they are trying to deal with etc.

Staff have been off sick, it's the middle of the holidays, more people are trying to do things by phone as they can't pop into a shop/branch.

Maybe just try understanding, it's frustrating for everyone, And no, I don't work in a call centre but I sometimes monitor calls and without a doubt every person was trying their best to help.

I have waitressed in the past in a couple of places (a lonnnng time ago!) and have never experienced people doing this so I didn’t know it was a thing.

modgepodge I’m not a big eater so I often ask for a smaller meal size and it’s never been a problem; they’ve always done it and they’ve reflected the change on the bill too

HSBC are still only open 10am-2pm.Why? ( because you know part time hours make it cheaper in the long run when they either make everyone redundant ir close the branch)

No. Because staff resourcing has been moved to deal with the most important and hardest hit areas due to Covid.

HSBC has had over 100k applications for BBLS. They’re overrun and on top of those they’ve had a massive uplift in ‘normal’ business and personal lending requests.

They have had a 6 fold increase in card disputes (most of which are for hotels/flights and similar).

They’ve had a 300% uplift in incoming calls and email queries. Call centres and back office teams are overrun.

Branches can cope with reduced hours. Staff have been moved from branches to assist in harder hit areas like lending, disputes, complaints and inbound queries.

By the way did the email thing 14 days ago no response! Now more than ever customer is important and customer care should be paramount, because people will remember.
Right lovely so wait for a response. Stop calling if you have already contacted them via email. Customers like you calling the wrong department and repeat calling is helping absolutely no one.

I’ve just looked at my stats from yesterday. On a normal shift I take 25-30 calls a day. Yesterday I took 124 calls. 40 odd of them were customers deliberately calling the wrong department either because my department has a free phone number/because the queue was too long for the department they were trying to reach/because the message said they had exceptionally high call volumes and to try again later. 7 were complaining their documents had not arrived despite being told 7 working days and it had only been 5. 4 were complaining they hadn’t received a call back- the staff member is actually in hospital with Covid and the other has gone off sick with stress. Most staff have agreed to take shorter lunch breaks to help out and pretty much everyone is doing overtime or TOIL.
My business has hired more staff as unlike the travel industry we don’t have the threat of redundancy or going bust hanging over us. They recruited in April by the time interviews were held and references and background checks completed it was the end of June. Training started on the 1st July for 4 weeks. Then they need 1:1 supervision by experienced staff for 2 weeks, 2 weeks with 2:1 supervision and 2 weeks with 3:1 supervision. We will start to see the benefit of the new headcount in October or November. Right now the new staff being there is more of a hinderance as they will naturally take twice the time of an experienced member of staff.

HSBC are still only open 10am-2pm.Why?

Same reasons. Staff levels are reduced and demand for services had increased. Staff have moved departments/branches to help cope with the increase in demand. Counter service is a very small section of the work done by HSBC. It's not even difficult. Why do people have such a job grasping this?

I agree OP.
Customer service has essentially vanished. I had an issue with PayPal when I was sold something broken, and I just couldn’t resolve it, it was a total nightmare. Same with banks, credit cards, airlines, insurance - lots of companies where people spend lots of money and get anxious if things can’t get sorted.

I don’t blame the individual employees - they’re clearly each trying to do the job of several people . It’s the companies I blame - huge multi billion companies that are cutting corners to save money, at our expense.

I completely understand that companies will be struggling to provide decent customer service due to staffing levels, social distancing etc. However, they could use other channels to provide customers with info - but some aren’t updating their websites or social media regularly with relevant info that would likely stop at least some people ringing or accessing web chat.

I agree OP and a lot of them aren’t going to bother going back to the office as it is cheaper for them not to use the office space, dreadful customer service is here to stay unfortunately.
YANBU

Lots of places will use Covid as an excuse to shut down branches and lay off staff.

I’ve had 3 companies with shoddy service this week, 2 still haven’t delivered orders placed weeks ago, 1 took payment for a cancelled order and are refusing to reimburse me while they investigate, again over a week now. I’m down over £100 on goods I’ve ordered but not had and can’t get any response on.

I work I'm customer service and I can say that our usual good service has definitely been affected by the virus.
Firstly we didn't make any revenue for 3 months and most staff were on furlough.
Then bit by bit business started resuming and in dribs and drabs more people were brought back. But of course we couldn't answer every call and deal with every query as quickly as we usually could due to not having everyone back. And we can't have everyone back yet (and maybe never get them all back) until we can afford it as we've lost so much money.
So I feel for the customers but they do have to understand imo that things won't go back to normal immediately.

The places giving poor service are happy enough to take your money though, the larger companies have been the worst. Also some Government services have been particularly bad like the passport office and DVLA

A lot of people who are working from home ARE more efficient - or at least as efficient.

The reason a lot of companies are providing crap service isn't because their staff are at home (though it may be in a few cases) - it's because they furloughed them and they're not working at all!

And it was ridiculous how many shops closed which could have stayed open - and equally how many are still closed, or have only just reopened, which could have opened in mid June. I think furlough has been massively misused.

Yep especially Tui.Never ever answer.

I should say that the one time I did call a call centre, I got through right away - to someone who was at home - who dealt with my query and I got the service I had applied for - a new broadband service. Ten out of ten to Plusnet (and Openreach).

0 out of 10 to Argos who still haven't opened my local branch and probably never will.

I work for an airline, maybe the one you have been dealing with or maybe not.

I’m in the US and don’t work in the call center but as I started off in the call center many years ago I have been brought back to “help out”, although I think I might be more of a hindrance because I’m so rusty, we have laid off over 45% of the employees. Those who are left have taken a pay cut. We have been trying to get all the call center people set up with home working but they are also home-schooling their children. One colleague of mine died of COVID-19, another was sick with it for a few weeks. Many of us are doing a job we are not trained for. Over here around 20,000 flights a day are being cancelled. Where do you suppose we get all these extra people from to deal with all these extra callers? To cut costs we are on a 4-day week. We have 5 rounds of redundancies. You will be talking to people who don’t know of they have a job next week. Some of the callers have been horrendous. And we could get through them faster if people could just get to the point when they call and not spend the first 5 minutes yelling how awful the wait times are.

Most major airlines have an online rebook system. Our website specifically says that there is no need to call to rebook and gives step-by-step instructions on how to rebook with the credit vouchers on the website. I’m sorry that’s too complex for you and you need someone to book a flight for you. Enjoy your holiday. Be glad you can afford one.

I have some sympathy with the difficulties facing organisations where a large number of staff are still working from home. However, I have less sympathy with other organisations. DH needs a blood test, it wasn't urgent when the Dr gave him the forms, but was important. In this area the hospital is only doing blood tests for cancer patients currently having chemo. Everybody else has to email a central email address. The automated reply states you have to allow 14 days for a response. So far, dh has waited 5 weeks. A further email hasn't even generated an automates response. There js no phone number to call and our go cannot get through to them. Dh now needs his blood test urgently and we are at a loss as to what to do.

@Erictheavocado

I have some sympathy with the difficulties facing organisations where a large number of staff are still working from home. However, I have less sympathy with other organisations. DH needs a blood test, it wasn't urgent when the Dr gave him the forms, but was important. In this area the hospital is only doing blood tests for cancer patients currently having chemo. Everybody else has to email a central email address. The automated reply states you have to allow 14 days for a response. So far, dh has waited 5 weeks. A further email hasn't even generated an automates response. There js no phone number to call and our go cannot get through to them. Dh now needs his blood test urgently and we are at a loss as to what to do.

If the GP can’t do anything would it come under PALS’ remit?

You absolutely shouldn’t need to do this given that we already pay for the NHS (and I fear we will end up with even more of a two tier system after Covid) but have you looked into getting it done privately? I had blood test via a local travel clinic/pharmacy for about £40 during lockdown.

You will be talking to people who don’t know of they have a job next week. Some of the callers have been horrendous. And we could get through them faster if people could just get to the point when they call and not spend the first 5 minutes yelling how awful the wait times are

This.

To put it more bluntly, when calling call centres I’d say 3 out of 10 people are absolute cunts.

I’ve had several stints of helping out with inbound calls since March. Dealing with general moaners is fine. Shouters and screamers are common but affect me little because it’s so pointless/silly...you just listen and tune out until they’re done and you can get on with what they’re calling about. But a large minority of callers are absolute horrible arseholes and are vicious and rude and take it out on the person answering the call.

*EXPLAIN to me right now why it’s taken 30 minutes to get through. NO. EXPLAIN in detail! (followed with many more shouted demands).
*HOW can you live with yourself, putting people through this?
*HOW do you even sleep at night?
*Companies are going bust right now, I hope yours is one of them.
*You can’t do xyz? You’re completely useless, no wonder you’re stuck in such a pointless job.

All things I’ve heard recently, none of the issues are my fault but people love to get personal.

These people are their own worst enemy though. You’ll never get anywhere far. If I get an arsehole on a call then I will do the absolute minimum I can - just enough that I would pass an audit check if the call was pulled for a random check. If the person is decent, I’ll bend over backwards for them.

Hang on, most people you speak
To now will be working from home but still answering calls, maybe with kids at home. Also things are far more difficult with IT. You need to be far more understanding.

@DinoDeb To put it more bluntly, when calling call centres I’d say 3 out of 10 people are absolute cunts.
Yup I’ve had customers tell me they hope I catch Covid and die. That they hope my family get covid and die- on the day I had actually lost my grandma to Covid.
All while shielding as I am undergoing cancer treatment homeschooling my 5 year old and looking after an 18 month old.
I will do anything I can to help polite customers. It’s a standard thing of a customer is polite and says good morning and please and thank you they will get as much discount as I am allowed to apply, I will leave notes to say to waive admin fees whenever I can. If a customer is rude or as snippy as the op I will not take off a single penny of discount. It’s discretionary so even if the call is monitored I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m amused when a customer is rude and abusive and I just think I could easily have saved you £300 if you were actually a nice person

@WrongKindOfFace
I hadn't thought of PALS as blood tests in this area can be carried out at several clinics that are not hospital based, but I'll contact them on Monday. As for private tests, due to several health conditions that require them, including one which had him in hospital during lockdown, I'm not sure whether the cost would be excessive for us - especially as we've just forked out almost £400 on new glasses which are now not required (diabetic incident affected eyesight and consultant insisted dh have new eye test which said glasses needed. Should have been told to wait a while as this can sometimes rectify itself according to an eye specialist. Which indeed, it has! So new specs, never been worn , now totally useless!)
Thank you for the idea though.