In thinking poor customer service is killing British businesses?

[reasonableme]

I called Barclays bank the other day about a suspicious transaction in my account involving a huge sum. The lady in the fraud team didn't have a clue and wanted me to do the research instead. I kept saying I really don't know who the payee was and that's what I would expect my bank to know. She got rude with me quickly and said she is not going to repeat the information for me. I asked her why she was getting mad at me when I was asking genuine questions? She snapped at me and said she is not going to engage in a conversation with someone like me and disconnected the call right on my face! Didn't have the patience to listen to anything I said after I asked her why she was upset with me. All I was trying to do was to understand a suspicious transaction. I complained but Barclays closed the case saying ok, we heard you.

The other day, I was emailing Nuffield Health gym for some personal classes and they said I need to be a member to get 1-1 lessons. Fair enough. I shared my number and asked the lady to give me a ring so we can discuss options to get a membership. She has not emailed or called me until now. It's almost like they don't want any new customers!

I called 2 companies to get a softener at home. They were nice enough to send their sales people to my house. They emailed me their quotes and after that they went cold. Didn't even follow up to see if I was interested. No calls after that.

This is the pattern I have been noticing in various (unrelated) industries. An utter disregard for the existing customers and zero/ low interest in getting new customers and I think this is partly why businesses fail. What do you think? Am I expecting too much?

I had CarpetRight out to measure for flooring.

Sorted it all out, got rough quotes and told them we’d be up the next day to pick out what we wanted.

Got there, picked out what we wanted. They ignored us. Three staff there, two chatting and one putting out flyers. There’s no way they didn’t see us.

Stood by the counter for a while but then gave up.

The floor is being done this week…
…by someone else.

Why even send someone out to measure if you have no interest in a sale?

Personally I think this traces back to entitled “customer is always right” attitudes.

Hear me out. I have worked a lot of time in customer-facing roles and customers are by and large, pretty awful to service workers. Customers have learned that they can get their way if they complain loudly enough, or they just take out their issues on low paid workers (seriously you would not believe how many people will just tell their cashier their deepest trauma).

I think people are getting burnt out and just don’t care to put in the effort any more when the end result is being treated like garbage either way.

Sorry you’ve had bad experiences, though. Doesn’t sound fun.

Just to quickly clarify, I don’t think OP was being entitled. I realise I didn’t word that great. I just meant in general people who do those jobs are so mistreated and burnt out that they don’t care any more.

The problem is customers know retail staff have it hard. They’re overworked and get random bollockings for not giving out enough store cards or collecting enough email addresses.

So they shop online instead.

Then retailers moan that the high street is dying.

No one wins.

I think there are a number of reasons for this but really its all comes down to the same thing, companies treat staff as a commodity. There is a lack of support and training, chronic understaffing and the pay is poor and the hours often long and anti-social. Also as the previous poster the customer that shouts the most rules and this is now the norm.

In case of the water softener, I wouldn't have expected them to call me back, others probably complained about hard-sell etc, this leaves you the chance to decide without harassing phone calls.

On the other side - just to give balance, I had a problem with my Halifax online banking recently. The woman who answered the phone spent an hour sorting it out - there was some kind of technical error and she seemed to take it as a personal challange and she did it

Also Mountain Warehouse sent me some walking boots which were faulty. I called them up, dealt with a very pleasant man and two days later a new pair arrived in the post.

Something wrong with my shark vacuum cleaner. Lovely man talked me through it and we finally found a blockage where I'd not thought to look.

I have had some bad service as well but honestly they are usually few and far between. Most people do actually want to help I do try to be patient with them as well because I know they're often restricted in what they can do by rules that aren't their fault.

Its a shame thought that it can take so long to get through in call centres. Poor staff are so often confronted by someone who's already in a bad mood because they've waited for 20 minutes already.

Ocado customer service are ace.

I don't think it is killing British businesses. I think it has transferred where we spend money on some things, but still do so because of lack of alternatives and an absence of good, simple additional bits of consumer protection law. Monopolies or almost monopolies are allowed to exploit their position, or there are obstacles to change that are designed to put people off.

There are also too many people prepared to accept poor service to save a bit of money, not all of whom do so because they are on a low income.

I was looking at flats at the height of the stamp duty holiday when estate agents were supposedly desperate to get viewers through the door. One called me back several days after I’d requested a viewing and another didn’t call me at all.

Personally I think this traces back to entitled “customer is always right” attitudes.

But customers ARE entitled - in the true sense of the word - to decent service. Being a customer is not a privilege and staff are not doing them a favour.

The biggest problem is I think is, they want an answer now, as 2mins out of their life,is just not on,. Working at a very sharp end of customer service 6 days a week is absolutely draining, whinging & whiners I call them, & they threaten with all sorts of downright outcomes for me if not settled NOW,. Society has really gone downhill,during 2020 lockdown everyone looked out for others,slowly turning in something of normality,it’s all gone sadly. No give or take when driving,& caries over in the high st. We all go to work for fridays but everyone deserves respect, no matter what work you do.

I think that customer service is often hampered by businesses having shitty policies which the poor reps are then in the front line of explaining/defending. So customer service staff turn over or burn out, customers get annoyed and no one wins. These days I am amazed when things are sorted with no problems by someone with a pleasant attitude.

I'm not sure that Barclays are particularly hard-up for custom.

@ABitDrunk

Ocado customer service are ace.

They are crap No consistency- the 1st operator picks it up and dont read the previous email

They respond to what they think you want- not what you want

Quit my delivery subscription in protest - now get weekly emails offering free delivery

Agree with mumoblue, it’s burn out.

Ok. @MySecretHistory

Why would someone call you if they sent a quote , they probably have enough business and people get back in touch
Most people don't want fo be hounded after and nuffield it didn't take that long go get back to you and you won't be the only email

@WomanStanleyWoman

Decent service, yup. But there are many people who don’t want decent service. They want, or demand, special treatment while calling staff stupid to their faces.
Too many people see customers as their personal servants or trauma dumping ground.

Having worked in customer services as well many people are rude and also want it sorted that second and its not always that easy and also you are not the only customer
As a customer I expect someone to be polite and help me but I understand if they take a little while to get back or get something sorted
Once I have quotes i don't want someone calling me as I am quite capable of deciding for myself who to go with
Its rare companies have time to chase up quotes anyway as often people get multiple for various reasons, your target your staff at those current customers and those placing the order

I currently work in retail and there's definitely colleagues who need to improve their communication skills and stop talking like a moody teenager. Same can be said for a large proportion of customers who speak to me like I'm not actually another person. I think there's a lot more understanding on both sides that could happen. Retail workers are actually more limited in what they can help you with than people expect, especially at the moment with transport and stock issues. I'm also not willing to bend store policy to help you out, it's not worth my job.

I think because of social media and contacting companies more easily some people expect a response almost immediately. This is clearly not always going to be the case and it's actually ok for a company to take a couple of days (would say 48-72 hours/3 working days) is acceptable. I would also hate to be contacted again and again by a company I asked a quote of once, it makes me less likely to move forward with them but I wonder if this is an age thing, I'm under 30 but maybe some 40/50+ would expect a call back.

I am very empathetic with customer service folks and I am always nice to them and interact with them the way I want to be interacted with. I am an employee myself so i understand work pressures. I also appreciate that for every bad experience there are some good to great experiences too which no body talks about usually.

However, I have been observing more of poor customer service in many sectors after the pandemic. I have always believed that it's extremely difficult to get a new customer but it's very easy to lose one so that kind of careless attitude beats me.

I briefly worked in a customer service role were the company had very strict procedures, the customers genuinely needed help but my colleagues and I could do literally nothing to help them. It was awful. I left after 5 months and still outlasted all but 1 of the 12 people who started with me.

I don’t think Amazon customer service is any good, but that isn’t suprising.

I rang a local oven cleaning company and asked for a quote. The man said ; 'It's not even worth wasting my time giving you a quote for cleaning a Smeg' and hung up on me.

Funnily enough, this man is a dog walking friend of a very good friend of mine and she had recommended him as he had been lamenting how lockdown had killed his business.

I agree.

I recently tried to return an item I bought that was faulty and wanted it replacing. Except there was no option for that.

I emailed customer service and they said they would refund me but I would have to buy another myself. And pay a second lot of postage for the privilege

I pointed out this was hardly fair and I got a stick response that didn’t answer my question.

Won’t be using them again.

Most companies are chasing the money and can’t be bothered to do anything to earn it.