To think that Covid has become a convenient excuse for poor service ?

[Mellonsprite]

For some firms (not all) ?
Just come back from a couple of days away in the Uk. Lots of car parks still closed, public toilets not opened, Not many inside activities like museums and castles re-opened yet, the officious-ness of the clipboard wielding all in the name of Covid? The hotel Meal meal (Prepaid) was cancelled at last minute, then acting like refunding my fee paid upfront was highly generous of them, apparently they’d ‘mis-calculated due to Covid’. Neglecting the fact that it left us completely high and dry, unable to speak to guest relations via email or phone. Bars closing at 9pm with staff asking customers can we pay up & leave!

I don't know how The Gourmet Burger Company is still in business! Tried to go in there twice, pre-Covid, such bad service we walked out.

Thames Water! They've whacked my bill up by £15 a month for no reason. Can't get through on the phone (only emergencies due to covid ), nowhere to email so sent them a Facebook message. Had response after a week asking for my full name/account number but had nothing since.

Luckily the extra isn't going to break the bank but I can imagine it causing a huge problem if you've lost your job!

Yep! Bought an M&S salad but then no fork ‘due to C19’ which is the opposite of the level of the disposable stuff elsewhere. So I sat on my 4 hour train journey unable to eat it. Why sell them in train stations if there’s no cutlery. I’m sure they’ll then discontinue these things due to lack of demand and it’s not a lack of demand but a lack of being able to use them.

YANBU While some of this was understandable during the initial lockdown period and the transition with companies getting to grips with having staff WFH, it is now getting beyond ridiculous and I suspect an excuse for some to lower customers expectations 'due to Covid'. It is not ok not to be able to contact a company by phone. If they are not in the office the technology exists to divert calls to their home or mobile. Customers shouldn't really experience anything different just because a company has people WFH, if it's not working or they don't have the technology then they need to get back to the offices.

@NotAKaren

YANBU While some of this was understandable during the initial lockdown period and the transition with companies getting to grips with having staff WFH, it is now getting beyond ridiculous and I suspect an excuse for some to lower customers expectations 'due to Covid'. It is not ok not to be able to contact a company by phone. If they are not in the office the technology exists to divert calls to their home or mobile. Customers shouldn't really experience anything different just because a company has people WFH, if it's not working or they don't have the technology then they need to get back to the offices.

100%. Phone diversion management software is cheap and easy to set up. All these big firms that aren't answering their phones deserve what's coming to them when the customers walk. I've gone back to sending letters to firms after hours of being stuck on hold with messages telling me it's due to covid. The more and more firms I need to contact, the more it becomes apparent that home working isn't working. Even when you manage to contact someone, they're apologising for their system not working or they can't help you because they can't ask someone else - the things that are easy when you're in an office with other people around you. I tried to phone Virgin to upgrade my subscription - 2 hours and finally spoke to a guy who hadn't a clue - he basically got to the same screen I could get to myself and was then surprised at the error message he got, which was identical to the one I got and which was why I phoned them in the first place. Then he said I'd have to phone a specialist dept and gave me a number - when I looked at it, it was the same bloody number I'd called on - he'd just done it to get me off the phone. Firms really need to up their game - it's 6 months now, they should have sorted themselves out.

The DVLA have been quick enough to flog my personal details to a private parking company during lockdown. Funny how they could manage that exercise!

Covid is the is the the gift that keeps on giving for some people / companies.

Question some poor / non existent service, you get the reply "Yeah, but Covid"

I was looking into new gym memberships to replace the one next to my office and Orange Theory were offering the first class free presumably to entice new members.

I then discovered that because I don’t share the same postcode as them my first class would actually be £25 and then an ongoing membership is £139 a month!

Oh and because of Covid all the nice changing facilities are shut, you have to bring your own towel and there’s a reduced timetable. I don’t think I’ll be joining any time soon.

Yep, still waiting on a £400 Ryanair refund here from a flight they cancelled in May.

Articles quote O'Leary committing to have refunded by end of July, yet here we are in September and I've received sod all. When you phone up it just says "sorry we have a high call volume" and hangs up. The auto bot seems to be programmed to deliberately misinterpret my query, and emails go unanswered. But hey - they're getting away with it! 🙄

I won't name our supplier, but we are challenging this at work where we think it's being used as an excuse to delay some actions. They realise that if they try the 'its holiday time' one, I point out that Stanley Baldwin in the 1930s introduced paid holidays, so they have had 85 years warning!

@Beaniebeemer

The DVLA have been quick enough to flog my personal details to a private parking company during lockdown. Funny how they could manage that exercise!

Haha yes they managed to find time the capability to do that to us too

My experience of poor customer service due to COVID is B&Q. Our bathroom is being tiled at the beginning of November, we need 21 boxes of tiles of which there are 19 at our store. I rang Customer Services up yesterday asking could they deliver these as they didn't do home delivery only Click and Collect.

Response was no we can't deliver 19 boxes of tiles due to COVID, we can only click and collect. So this will mean my husband and I will have to drive to local store and collect them, and put them onto the car ourselves. My husband suffers from RA so it's going to be hard enough to lift these boxes into the car.

As we have to 'click and collect' a number of bathroom items, it will probably take is 2 trips.

Oh yes I forgot, they won't deliver the extra 2 boxes from another store so we have to drive approx 25 miles to pick them up.

Good Covid service experiences:
Schuh
Ocado (appreciate that's not everyone)
Deliveroo/Uber eats drivers
Amazon drivers (the best!)
Odeon (just opened and very welcoming)

Poor Covid service-
Local council owned leisure centre, so many staff not doing very much, other staff barking orders at customers. Much the same as before really, how many will retain their jobs since no one allowed in, who knows.
Game, the shop, awful awful awful

Went to a fish and chip shop in Goring where they were horrified that I used the vinegar bottle to put on my chips ‘because of Covid’ and ostentatiously washed it but then insisted they could only take cash not card 🙄

@absolutelyknackeredcow

British Gas - can't get through AT ALL. Every time I do hang on for 30 plus minutes - it rings and doesn't connect. Took 2 days for them to reply to a tweet asking them to book a call. I'm not allowed to book a call. It's a non standard enquiry - they are sending me bills for a meter that isn't operational but they don't want to remove because of Covid. Doing my head in

Yet they'll happily install smart meters....

@PushyMeez

Yep, still waiting on a £400 Ryanair refund here from a flight they cancelled in May.

Articles quote O'Leary committing to have refunded by end of July, yet here we are in September and I've received sod all. When you phone up it just says "sorry we have a high call volume" and hangs up. The auto bot seems to be programmed to deliberately misinterpret my query, and emails go unanswered. But hey - they're getting away with it! 🙄

If you paid via a debit card, call your bank and ask them to reform a ChargeBack.

If credit card, then a Section 7 (I think it's 7!) Claim

@Alwaysinpain it was a debit card, and I didn't know that - thank you! I'll try it and if I get anywhere will update 😊

Progress! My local Natwest has extended its hours to 9.30-4.30 (although still no Saturday opening) but much better than the limitation of 10-2.

Local library due to re-open 5th October - again it's a bit of a lottery as the other library I use has been open since August.

Just got one to add. I live in a house converted into 7 flats, no individual post boxes. My flatmate got their new passport before Covid, they were kept informed by text and e-mail every step of the way and given a time it was going to come so they could take it from the courier. Sent for mine a couple of weeks ago, got a stroppy text saying it would take a while (Covid don'tcha know). It arrived today slung in the hall, not informed it was coming, not signed for, nothing. Fortunately nobody on earth would claim to look like that passport photo though, so it was safe enough...

Absolutely, just had the same conversation with a friend today. But credit where it’s due I had an item delivered today that was damaged, emailed the firm, I hadn’t ordered from them previously, had a call within minutes & a replacement dispatched, I was really pleasantly surprised.

Need a new pair of glasses frames (mine broke)- went to my opticians yesterday and was told to wait outside, one assistant sauntered over and said I would need an appointment - even for choosing frames I queried, yes she said. The shop was empty.