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, I actually moved our bank accounts from Lloyd’s to Starling because they were so utterly useless during Covid and we’d been with them for 25 years before that!

YANBU!

We’ve been having problems with our Sky TV. Took weeks to finally speak to someone but they won’t come out unless we’re vulnerable or keyworker customers. Ok right at the beginning of lockdown, but not so much now. Still claiming their monthly direct debit for TV we cannot watch

Our local animal feed supplier reduced its opening hours to Mon-Fri 10am to 4pm because Covid. Ok (ish) right back at the beginning, although all reducing opening hours achieved was massive queues as the same number of customers had less time to shop, but they’re still operating these hours and it’s a massive ball ache as one of us has to leave work and sit in a 2 hour queue.

DVLA - we register new vehicles at work. They were already on a 6 week turnaround before Covid, we’ve now been waiting 5 months for registrations. We can’t sell vehicles without them being registered - no sales, no income so we’re pretty screwed and redundancies will be on the cards pretty soon. On the other had, DH swapped his work van to a personal plate, whole thing was done and dusted in about 4 days

Yes ! BTW had to give my details for the first time for track and trace purposes. Total jokes.

YANBU.

The companies that were good on customer service before have generally coped well (with some teething difficulties).

The ones that were crap before are very crap now and seem to have no intention of ever improving.

Banks and utilities seem to be aiming for their dream scenario of employing no actual humans at all in any role. If it ain't on the drop-down menu, then you ain't getting it.

YANBU

Poor service from

British Gas (in total ended up speaking to 21 people but eventually did get compensated)
RAC - Laughable service still waiting for results of complaint

Disgraceful Service
Prudential - words fail me but now complaint in process

Even though the service has been awful in each and every case I started a complaint. Yes they take a long time but the processes do exist so worth looking into them. £50 from BG and £30 from BG Home care. I would rather they did their jobs in the first place.

I’ve have experienced so much of this. I am awaiting dental work as my crown came off two months ago and my dentist is still not able to see me till mid September even though my tooth has now broken off in places and causing me pain, funny though they could see me sooner if I was a private patient! I have contacted my dc’s school several times but still awaiting an answer. My fil has received 4 parking fines from our local hospital after visiting my terminally ill mil I’ve tried and tried to contact PALS still no answer, mil is now in a hospice and we need to have a family meeting with her care team, they will only see one of us and have refused a Zoom or FaceTime meeting to talk to all involved so it’s now down to poor 80 year old fil to deal with. I am waiting for a hospital appointment just had a choose and book letter come through, tried to make the appointment, next available one is 25 weeks away!! The list of poor service goes on and on.....

oops missed NS&I from the utterly appalling service category

@LucyTamedOgres my DD had to stick her foot through a hole in a Perspex screen....

How do you expect companies to provide the old service when most staff are still on furlough?

I make an exception for the travel industry for very obvious reasons, but the whole point is that furlough should never have been extended as long as it has in the first place
We could have shielded the genuinely vulnerable and got most of the rest back to work long since, but instead we're dealing with another misjudgement along with all the others

And don't even start me on the local authorities who, instead of redeploying staff to more useful roles, have merrily carried on dipping into the furlough fund in an attempt to squirrel yet more cash ...

Oh yes I forgot about our local pub. It’s all new staff and everyone orders on their website (which is shit and clunky) so literally all they have to do is bring your drinks to you but it’s so so slow, then they can’t find your table and the order is never 100% correct.

They’ve also started giving plastic cups only and paper plates for food which is just wasteful and doesn’t make for an enjoyable experience

I was about to come on and say the post office.
I know they did a great job in the early days of the lockdown when everything was uncertain and everyone was ordering vast amounts online BUT as a PP said - they have reduced the delivery office opening times, we get post maybe twice a week and a letter I sent (which had a deadline and so I sent guaranteed next day) was late. This has all been in the past two weeks. We also get the red cards despite me/ my DH being home 24/7 and the delivery office is open 7-9am only. Why? There are always massive queues at my local one which makes social distancing difficult. I think they may have had staffing reasons to begin with but I imagine this must be better by now?

Yes, local collection office still only open 7-9am

No idea why

@Bathroom12345

I think companies have got greedy, furlough as many as possible. Then the poor sods who are left bear the brunt of customer's anger have no hope of coping.

Dont get me started on public sector. They have hidden all their staff behind phone calls that have no hope of being answered and emails that are responded to months later. Yes, DVSA are a disgrace. They have been sending me pre written replies to a query even though the answer has nothing to do with the question. I tried to esclate to be told they arent taking complaints.

After 3 months I did get a apology and the chap said they were sending out irrelevant replies because they just had too many emails. I suggested it might be because they just wanted to show the email had been answered!

In the private sector that sort of behaviour would not be tolerated. Of course staff are available to ring people who are self quartantining. Those rules are so confusing (literally rules on rules) countries in and out, different rules for Scotland etc. It has become a complete joke.

Public sector organisations have been appalling.

Don't get me started on bin collections. Literally no excuse

That's shocking Frogs I got prescription antibiotics at the start of lockdown and have visited the dentist and hugenist in person weeks ago. Sack off your surgery if you can.

I was thinking about starting a similar thread OP. I have been dealing with OVO, who supply gas and electricity to our rental property, out of which the tenants moved at the beginining of lockdown. It has stood empty since, because it needs some work doing and it hasn't been possible to do it yet. So everything is switched off, no gas or electricity is being used. Tenants gave meter readings on their last day, and passed on our details, and I have been onto OVO to have the account put into our name. I am still waiting. I have had multiple calls asking me to set up a smart meter. Requests for me to access their app and submit meter readings. And multiple bills to the occupier based on estimated usage, getting increasingly aggressive in their demands for payment, but I still have no account. So can't submit meter readings. Which would prove that no energy has been used.

I've made two complaints now, and am drafting a complaint to the ombudsman next. When I made the first complaint I got a phone call saying these things take a while and covid dontchaknow, she couldn't tell me how long it would be. The second complaint hasn't even had a response.

Also I was supposed to be having a coil fitted in March. God knows when that will happen.

I just posted this exact comment on my facebook a couple of days ago.

Just been in Crotia - Dubrovnik and Split. Fairly normal, everyone getting on with it. Service great

Hotel at the weekend for our anniversary in Leeds. Had to prebook everything fair enough. However booked for dinner and still had to wait for a table as it hadn't even been laid. Not even that busy. Service was slow and heard lots of complaints.

Went to the Champagne Bar - told couldn't do cocktails because of Covid. Thought I'd heard it all. I had plenty of cocktails on holiday but the bar where they are known for their cocktails couldn't be arsed to make them.

YANBU completely agree about the really poor service from NatWest and Sky. All our business and personal banking is NatWest. I’m going to switch the lot.

Yes. Our local uniform shop lost £100 worth of business from me because you had to book an appointment but couldn't get through on the phone and they didn't respond to emails or voicemail. Website is out of date and doesn't show half the correct uniform we needed.
The other uniform shop in the next town had everything on the website available to buy online and collect in store.

Yes I started a thread on banks limited opening hrs recently. By this point it is a withdrawal of services rather than an immediate response to the pandemic.

YABU.
Poor customer service comes from lack of a decent wage, terms and condition of employment, not being valued by the company, not being valued by the customer.
I think if you want good customer service you need to use the companies that give a damn.

Yes, everything takes so much longer with people WFH then they harp on about how productivity has not slipped etc - I beg to differ. It's been a fucking nightmare to complete a simple task.

@userxx

Yes, everything takes so much longer with people WFH then they harp on about how productivity has not slipped etc - I beg to differ. It's been a fucking nightmare to complete a simple task.

This

@MadisonAvenue

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.

I had a broken item with my ikea order - contacted them using their live chat function and replacement was sent. I thought their customer service was first class

userxx I totally agree. Sky, Virgin, John Lewis, Simba, NatWest etc etc. Nightmare

Yes as much as WFH has been ok, it is an arse to get anything done.