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 agree.

another one here waiting for a refund from Virgin Atlantic - almost £2K. The flight was cancelled in May.

Also I have had a few insurance policies up for renewal this past few months - what a ballache trying to actually speak to anyone who can action them. I had to spend soooo much longer on the phone for each call - getting more and more frustrated as they were making errors which I couldn't resolve via their online service.

Clearly these companies could have had staff working from home if necessary but I guess they furloughed them - hence had fewer available staff to deal with the customers.

I hate shopping - supermarket is an ordeal. I haven't even ventured out to do clothes shopping (no point as don't need any clothes to stay home).

Our life here hasn't changed. DH works for himself - no option for any financial assistance despite having virtually no work since March.

The GP surgery on the other hand has been amazingly helpful. I love their telephone triage service. Perfect service.

I

Yep - start of lockdown Halifax randomly changed the date of birth on my account... so none of my online banking retrieval details worked anymore. It took me days to get past the covid gatekeeping to get to speak to a human to sort out THEIR error - fine early days, and people were still getting organised, but they STILL have the "don't call unless you're a keyworker" guilt trip and aren't answering the phone now and we're nearly in bloody September!

I agree. It's turned some assistants into jobs worth's and the whole going on holiday thing into an endurance test.
I understand people are scared and that it has to be done , but it's turning people against each other too and making people scared.
Sad really.

SSE unable to come out for meter readings, but the string of letters insisting I have them come and install a smart meter apparently unaffected.

Ikea have been pretty crap too.

I placed an online order in early May and they weren’t able to deliver until June 8th. When it eventually arrived though the packaging was torn and soaking wet (despite the weather being really lovely and dry) and the item was ever so slightly damaged.

We still built it up as it didn’t affect the finished item, didn’t want to queue up outside a store for hours to return it and neither did we want to have to wait another month for a replacement.

There was no easy way of contacting them apart from through Twitter and it took until mid July to get a response. They offered a 10% refund which I accepted but almost 6 weeks later and more DMs on Twitter, it still hasn’t been actioned.
Again, we were loyal customers but the customer service received is going to make me think twice before using them again.

Went to a large pub the other day. The sort of place in the countryside that has lots of day trippers and dog walkers. They were packed and charging about £15 for fish and chips so not the cheapest end of the market. They had no toilets open and were telling everyone to use the public loos down the road which were obviously disgusting and had no loo roll because of the huge demand. It really annoyed me. There was zero reason they couldn’t open theirs they just didn’t want to have the hassle of the frequent cleans and managing the queue.

Yep! 100% had this with basically everyone I've had to deal with

And my local pool has about 5 slots a week for families which all book up immediately and lots of adult only swims that are all available. Why? They just don’t like the kids from the local estate.

I refuse to get a smart meter so I just get emails every few weeks asking for a reading online .
It's a pain , but I've been put off getting one and heard a phone in once about them being rubbish. Plus it's more ways of controlling what you use and will just result in the energy companies' giving ' you a set amount of energy for your home based on the smart meter readings. I can see that happening.
I know this isn't about energy companies , but their customer service has always been hit or miss and will probably be worse now because of covid and laying people off I bet!

@Fishyfinger @Ilikewinter @Polnm

Re Virgin Holidays/Atlantic. Not sure if you’re on the Virgin refund Facebook page but have you checked your cancellation invoice (should be in Manage My Booking) to see if the balance is a minus? If it’s not then you need to contact them and get them to do it, a positive balance apparently means that they’ve issued a voucher.

If that’s all as it should be then the date that you can expect to get your refund should be noted in Manage My Booking.

Macdonald Hotels - can't get a refund for a booking in May, no-one answers emails/calls/no-one available.

FFS. I get that the hospitality industry is struggling but to have some contact from someone/anyone!

Its interesting to see how companies have coped. Initially the rug was drawn from under all our feet.

Some buisness will not be opening for a long time an dothers have opened according to the guidelines.

I will certainly support buisneses who have faced up and adapted, tried their best and shown initiative and latteral thinking. I'll be happy to support the ones I used to who have had no option but to suspend work due to the nature of their work.

I will be proud to boycot the ones who have used "its covid innit?" as an excuse of bad service, cutting staff and phones as an excuse. And if I hear of any buisnesses who furloughed staff and expected them to work, they cna take a running f... at a doughnut!

YANBU. I ordered DS' school uniform on 15th July. Received a 2nd email last week blaming COVID for the delay in delivery . It was meant to take 3 weeks. It's now 6 weeks and not a stitch has been received. He starts school on the 3rd September.

I agree, I completely understand the H&S perspective but they should be putting plans in place by now and communicating them. The toilets that are still closed is extremely frustrating, and also annoyingly our collection post office is only opening for 2 hours every day in the morning, no answer as to when they will open it back for normal hours

@greengreengrass14

I had recently changed my electric and gas meters pre-payment meters from Utilita to Scottish Power.

Reasons being obviously cheaper tariff, I had inherited the prepayment meters, plus inconvenience of top ups, i.e. if I was ill it would be difficult to get to the shop.

Scottish Power assured me everything would be okay 'at their end' and they would 'automatically' switch the meter over to credit as it is a smart meter.

All i would need to do is provide a meter reading.

Day after switch I find out meter readings no longer appear on my meter. So they plan to use estimated readings to bill me.

Person on the other end of the phone thought this was fine, and said 'we can't send anyone out due to Covid'.

Beg your pardon I said. You mean you can now bill me whatever you like and I can't even check on it myself as meter readings don't show on meter. So as far as I'm concerned they effectively lied to me all along.

I personally find that disturbing. I took a reading before the switch just in case. I've made a complaint.

Problem with smart meters is they are smart only for the company who insatlled them. When you switch to another suplier they go into dumb mode.

If you try pressing button 9 on an electric smart meter it should give your electric reading in KWh, likelwse in gas in m3 (cubic metres).

If this dioes not work, and there are different makes of smart meters, try searching for reading (Wiggyapps) poer suppliers smart meters.

The worst yet is the NHS,They are so facing backlogs in clinics I cannot see where they will start to get on track.

This. I was due to get my implant changed in April, clinic still isn't open sadly. No idea when I'll get an appointment once it is.

Other than that haven't had any issues though recently. Been lucky on that.

[quote MadisonAvenue]**@Fishyfinger* @Ilikewinter* @Polnm

Re Virgin Holidays/Atlantic. Not sure if you’re on the Virgin refund Facebook page but have you checked your cancellation invoice (should be in Manage My Booking) to see if the balance is a minus? If it’s not then you need to contact them and get them to do it, a positive balance apparently means that they’ve issued a voucher.

If that’s all as it should be then the date that you can expect to get your refund should be noted in Manage My Booking.[/quote]
I think that's only for Virgin Holidays? Mine is flight only booked direct with Virgin Atlantic.

I have a refund number - just waiting.

I am on the facebook page called " Virgin Atlantic Refund Action Group (Not Virgin Holidays)"

I would like to make a plug for Plusnet and Openreach though - I ordered a new broadband line and had it within 3 weeks despite the fact a channel had to be built across my garden and a new line put in. They were really efficient (and the Plusnet people were working from home).

Also had a garden office installed and although it was delayed by two days for non-Covid reasons they were really efficient too.

As someone who has been provisioning IT solutions throughout the pandemic and the comment: ‘how hard can it be to get call centres running from home?’ - the answer is harder than you think. Lots of large businesses will be running legacy applications which don’t ‘lift and shift’ to a remote solution easily, plus you’ve got to factor in things like ISPs for staff. Lots of people were on the cheapest broadband packages, which simply aren’t suitable for homeworkers. Oh and availability of hardware/peripherals etc when all companies are trying to provision homeworkers at the same time. We ordered the only headsets we could get our hands on at the time, with the resultant effect that due to needing an adapter for laptop compatibility, they made the agents sound as they were taking calls under the sea.

Long call waits aren’t ideal, and you can be sure that there’ll be longer term plans to improve home working infrastructure in the event of second wave. But a lot people, have been working very hard all through lockdown.

It's not just private companies. I had a baby in early April and have been unable to register him. No birth certificate has meant no passport which in turn has cost us all our family holiday! Everyone else has had to make work places 'covid secure' and return but it was another story for the local councils. I now have an appointment (for 3 weeks time when baby will be 5 months old!) but I have to go alone. My husband cannot come because we are married. My baby and older children are not allowed to come either. It's all completely OTT when supermarkets and many other places have been able to put up a bit of perspex and just get on with it!!

Totally agree. Post office- ordered special delivery item. Post man didn't even try ringing bell/ knocking as was sat in living room- dropped a while you were out card. Needed to collect today- a moonpig thankyou card created for our DDs last day at Childminder before starting school- delivery office closed on Wednesday- so now wont be able to give her the card, am so gutted. The opening hours are 7- 9am only 5 days a week due to Covid, obviously by having such crazily early hours they hope no-one bothers. Just not ok.

I have an online store and my service got worse during covid. Sales went up massively like 500%, I had my children at home all of the time with me, postal services were a lot slower than usual. I was really struggling to keep up despite my best efforts. I tried to keep people in the loop as to what was going on with their orders but it was much slower for people to receive their goods than normal.

I wasn't sat on my hole using Covid as an empty excuse for poor service. I was working every hour of the day whilst also trying to look after my kids.

Agree.
ADT - told me that they had furloughed too many staff and didn't have to capacity to fix my alarm I need for insurance purposes. But I had to push to get a refund. Then - ages to get it fixed - despite the fact it is accessible from outside.
Edf - sending us mental bills for an old meter and then refusing to come out to remove an old Meter because of Covid. Accessible from outside.

Ocado - smart pass holder - couldn't get a slot as I didn't spend enough.

Totally agree. Post office- ordered special delivery item. Post man didn't even try ringing bell/ knocking as was sat in living room- dropped a while you were out card.

His bag was full, and he didn't want to carry it, or he didn't have time for more "knock and waits". That has always happened. It happened to me before Covid.

on utilities and banks etc i totally agree, they've had plenty time to set up homeworkers for calls etc.

Seasonal tourism businesses however are another matter. They are often on their knees by late February anyway just due to the winter costs and low income and then they normally employ extra seasonal staff in March and train them up before the peak hits but couldn't do that and now covid restriction means that they can't actually open at a capacity that does more than covers cost (sometimes not even that). Or they are open at capacity but on half staff, and without any cash reserves to employ more staff at short notice. Customer service has suffered in some cases but some of the staff are covering 2/3 jobs and exhausted.

For some museums/tourism sites it costs more to pay somebody to sell tickets for a day than they get in ticket income with the reduced capacity.