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!

Power trip is a good way of explaining the awful behavior from some quarters!
Some get a kick out of it I think ( probably a few are getting their own back on horrible customers from the past maybe as well )

Agree my friend hasn’t had a working sky service since lockdown and no one will come out and you can’t get through on the phone.

The “please don’t call us” message is so maddening.

Post office - early on lock down 2 special delivery parcels were delivered (items worth up to £500) I know they cant ask for a signature but they didnt even knock, just left in an open porch.
Me and DH work for a small business, it's open every day, our customers want things within certain timeframes.2 of our main suppliers seem to be operating as normal. One is open 9-3 , closed for an hour for lunch and always has queues, another is open 11-3 and always has queues. The amount of time we waste queuing means us working later to try to deliver to our customers on time while the other places staff naff off at 3pm!

Yip. In a local restaurant a couple weeks ago and the service was terrible. Complained to the manager who shrugged and said it was because of covid and they had to distance behind the bar so took longer. Then went behind the bar and went up to another server and the two of them were whispering to each other with lots of looks on our direction. Not so much distancing going on then...

Yup. I’ve been trying for a month to get through to hone insurers to change cover as moving house. 3 phone calls logged with “we’ll get back to you” and 2 emails on online system and not a peep back until I raised an official complaint- even then they’ve said they’ll get back to me within 8 weeks. I’m currently drafting a complaint with financial ombudsman. Friends DH works for big bank, got 12,000 call centre staff working at hone within days - anyone that’s not able to do this is a cheapskate company I have no intention of re using in future.

Also playground equipment all closed off at a national trust property today, DS was so disappointed.

We went to the zoo yesterday and I was impressed at how they had got back up and running but this must have been out of necessity to stop from closing the zoo and to feed the animals. I don’t even like zoos but there was bloody nothing else to do and nowhere to go so I thought at least I can pay the zoo some of my money for feeding the animals instead of paying some restaurant for terrible service. I live next to a national trust place and you can’t yet a bloody online booking for weeks yet you can at the zoo!

Good service from Amazon, John Lewis, ao.com and a couple of others.

I reckon small local companies are the way to go. The local butchers went above and beyond - just two of them worked behind closed doors during lockdown to deliver to everyone who wanted meat, not just vulnerable or keyworkers, until they re-opened the shop in June. I've become a regular there now (easier due to WFH).

Hoping to get a broken double glazing unit replaced soon, which someone's coming to quote for tomorrow, so the poster who's been trying for ages, do you have a smaller local outfit, such as a 'window doctor' type service, rather than using a large national company?

Couldn't believe it today. I'm not a Sky customer but an 0800 number called me, didn't answer then looked up the number, and it was Sky, presumably a cold sales call! How can organisations have the resources for those when they can't look after existing customers properly (of course I know why, they're not bothered)!

QVC - ordered goods at the end of April, not received by mid June. Their website loftily informs you that they are not accepting email queries. After 37 attempts finally got through to a customer services woman who crossly informs me we are in a pandemic you know and have less staff working.
Well if you only have half the staff at work stop accepting so many orders!
To my great shame I have been using Amazon and they have been brilliant.

It’s the post office and Royal Mail that bugs me

A Post office near me refused to take a parcel I took in that had a couple of drops of rain on it because of Covid. This was a few weeks ago, not back in March.

We are still only getting post delivered twice a week and the sorting office is only open 2 hours a a day 3 days a week. I understood it at lockdown when there will have been lots of staff ill/self isolating, but now?

Oh and we were on holiday in Devon recently. One day we went into the nearest town. 3pm and pretty much all the shops were closed. One had a sign saying they were open from 9.30 - 11. What the hell is the point? There was a charity shop, quite a big unit open, except only allowing 3 customers in at once. Who’s going to queue in the rain to look round a charity shop?

I don’t like to hear of places going bust or staff losing jobs but you do have to wonder if some places will bring it on themselves with their nonsense

@Puzzledandpissedoff

public sector local government jobs didn't use furlough scheme

I obviously can't speak for others, but I assure you they did round here; the guidance may say that LAs "aren't expected" to use the furlough scheme, but sadly they've not actually been prevented from doing so

No, they actually can't.

Agree.

Are we shaming companies?

If so Dyson and IKEA - both on hold for over an hour to speak to them in the last week or so.

This is not whilst the country is in complete lockdown where everyone just had to react to an unprecedented situation.

There is no need for why call centres can't now be running at 80% capacity (accounting for maybe 20%with health conditions which mean mean they need to continue to shield).

The country needs to get back to normal!

Part of the drag on the economy is how long everything takes to do at the moment so we all are less productive.

Amazon & Dominos Pizza fan here too blush they have been wonderful throughout!

Not seeing the dominoes love here, they stopped doing gluten free pizzas at the start of lockdown and still haven't resumed many months later.

My vets. I have an 18 year old cat that’s walking round in circles yowling. The vet thinks he could have a dental problem, also want to do blood tests with sedation. The earliest appointment they could offer me was 3 weeks off ‘due to Covid’. Obvious to anyone the cat is distressed. Gone to another practice and he’s having it done next week.

Supermarkets inability to consistently service demand has been pretty eye opening.

In our sector we had nearly 100% availability across our range, occasionally struggling with eggs. There were no supply issues further up the chain but the supermarkets took weeks/months to catch up because their systems are too centralised and inflexible

Their (all of them) online delivery service was effectively unavailable for nearly 4 months in my mum's local area

Yes YANBU.

Ive seen loads of examples of it.

It is partly because of the shambolic, unclear and daily you turns to the guidance issued by the Gmt so no one (individuals; businesses or other organisations) really knows what they are doing.

Hence the reaction is a mixture of people trying to implement some kind of risk assessment based on their subjective interpretation of the "rules" BUT even more importantly when they reach their tolerance limit for the "rules" I think their are loads of examples where they just think "Well fuck it, we always wanted to do XYZ in our business or whatever" so they use Covid as a smoke screen to go ahead and do that even if in normal times whatever that is would never be justified.

Case in point - I live in a smallish but growing / expanding commuter village. House developers moved in acquired land and inspite of some grumbling from local residents managed to get planning permission for 2 different new housing developments ON THE CONDITION that they also funded some new infrastructure - including upgrade to some of the water/electricity/investment in the school AND a new doctors surgery which was badly needed.

On lockdown the existing small doctors surgery suddenly announced it was temporarily closing (because social distancing could not be complied with) apart from to collect prescriptions in a small window in the day.

Now all these months on said small doctors surgery has now said it is going to unilaterally shut the surgery permanently - because it could not afford the upkeep of the building it is currnelty housed in - and - you guessed it above house developer is now NOT going to building / commit to the funding of the promised modern surgery to reflect all the new houses (even tho it was in the section 106 agreement as a conditiion).

All the (mainly elderly) folk in village up in arms; strong wiff of the small existing doctors surgery which is closing was not making enough money anyway and the GPs did not mind being shipped off to the partner surgery many miles away anyway; and total radio silence from the housing developer.

Covid used as an excuse to implement their prior personal agendas with no means of recourse/ consultation.

I get it for the travel industry to an extent. They have had to cancel literally millions of holidays but have the same number of staff just working from home. There is a limit to the number of refunds they can actually process each day.

Banks are driving me mad with the reduced hours and Sky you actually have to lie and say you are a key worker to speak to anyone regardless of how big the problem is. The only company I’ve found who have been fantastic all the way is Octopus Energy. They have dealt with everything very quickly and actually resolved issues rather than blame covid for not being able to.

Agree. I'm on the phone to an airline right now. I rang at 08:11 and, except for the automated reply, no response. No indication where I am in the queue, or if there even is a queue.

Oh and we were on holiday in Devon recently. One day we went into the nearest town. 3pm and pretty much all the shops were closed. One had a sign saying they were open from 9.30 - 11. What the hell is the point? There was a charity shop, quite a big unit open, except only allowing 3 customers in at once. Who’s going to queue in the rain to look round a charity shop?
We are on holiday this week. I would say 75% of the shops weren't open at all on Monday. There has been a queue outside primark every day though, even in the rain!

its not quite the same thing but GPs! my god theyve been bloody ridiculous!

YANBU. Mixed responses from BT.

Called, put on hold for half hour then cut off

Called again, put on hold 45 mins snd finally spoke to somebody

Tried to use online chat as advised, but chat cut me off saying there were not enough advisors

Engineer round next day - fantastic service

Re-rang post engineer visit, got through straight away, advisors spoke to me like crap and make me feel like a scammer/CF for asking for a new router as advised by their engineer! I've been with them 4 years snd had no issues previously.

I am definitely re-evaluating the companies I use. For start, I want to be able to email them. I have an ongoing issue with BT but nothing in writing.
Twitter has been better though. They have messaged me back on there.

I had excellent customer service from Wayfair. An item arrived slightly damaged unfortunately and it was sorted efficiently.
This was fairly early on too.

Amazon - excellent

We will remember them when things return to normal. We will also remember those who gave us good service through it all.

The only company I’ve found who have been fantastic all the way is Octopus Energy.

Yes to this - I switched to them in the middle of lockdown; I needed to speak to them on the phone twice and both times I waited maybe less than a minute to speak to someone.

Amazing how some companies can manage flexibility and others have been woefully rigid and unhelpful, isn’t it? When they’re in the same sector it rather blows a hole in the “Can’t due to Covid” attitude and shows it up as a “Won’t and don’t want to”.

Absolutely agree ...I said the same thing yesterday