General levels of service going downhill

[aawcmon]

I will accept that i'm grumpy right now after having to deal with my umpteenth issue today as a result of organisations not doing what they said they would. Over the past few days, i've had to

1. deal with Issue with local garage not releasing car after repairs because someone hadn't done right paperwork, took 3 days to resolve
2. issue with DD's university registration because someone had filled in incorrect date on their database, despite us highlighting it to them 3 times in person! Still not resolved.
3. Virgin media....don't get me started, i can't keep having the same conversation over and over with them to get a service disconnected.

Everything just feels so bloody hard right now, even basic stuff. I appreciate resources are tight everywhere and people are providing a service on a shoestring (myself included) but why is it all so hard!.

Rant over

I was discussing this very thing with one of my customers last week.
No one seems to take responsibility any more. If you ring up a company, you'll get a different person answer ( eventually) each time and they all mouth the same platitudes,but no one actually does the job they are paid to do.
I had a incident last week,with a business of which I've been a customer for over a decade. They tried to charge me for something despite ' no charge to customers ' being displayed both on site and in their T&C online. When I very politely emailed to point this out,saying that I would not expect to be charged and that there was obviously a bit of confusion,radio silence. Not even a reply to confirm that I was correct or even apologise for trying to rip me off.
I was trained in customer services back in the 1980's and it seems a world away from what I seem to experience daily at the moment.

Ringing companies is frustrating. press 1 for this, 2 for that, 3, 4, 5 etc until you can't remember which was for which then have to start all over again. Or recorded messages telling us to go on the website for the answers!

So.much incompetence around. Left hand dosent know what the right hands doing.

I got out of retail last year.....was done after covid! Retail manager and the public were SO rude!

I joined the prison service and now work in a men's prison. The prisoners are much nicer than the public!

This made me lol 😂 I do all online now. In person shopping gives me the rage unless it's at smaller independent shops.

It's mainly litigation. In my company, we tell our customer facing staff that they can never "admit guilt". So they can say "I'm very sorry that this has happened" for example, but not "I'm sorry..it's because we did xyz wrong" if that makes sense. I do think the company offer a very high level of service, but the staff will never admit they did anything wrong 😂

Claiming on warranty for a spin dryer. Rang previously and was told someone would ring to organise a replacement. Rang the number 10 days later to be told I'd have to ring the warranty company. I had. Rang same number again. Got different person. Asked them to email me to confirm conversation. She did. Then someone rang and wanted to listen to machine in action. They listened to the awful noise and told me they'd send me a new one.

Not the worst we've had recently by a long shot. But I'm writing to the CEO of that company to point out their complaints process only works if you're incredibly persistent. And I mean incredibly persistent.

In contrast Argos were superb recently when a wardrobe door arrived broken. They offered a discount and a replacement door. No quibble. No need to send photos. Incredibly good service.

I'd calmed down last night, then after reading these, got all riled up again 😀 Still trying to deal with Virgin media...they were supposed to disconnect my elderly DF in April at his request (changing provider). They then didn't tell him they'd cancelled the disconnection (for no reason at all) and have been sending him bills every month. He's demented and not long out of hospital, so this is really worrying him. Every time we speak with them, they say don't worry it won't happen this month and like clockwork it does. And deep breaths....not the time to be going through the menopause!

And why the current aversion to call customers and email at all costs despite me providing several numbers? Lord no, let's make a problem take three times as long to resolve because we can't be arsed speaking to people.

That's assuming when they do email you they have a) even bothered to read and therefore answer all your questions, and b) not just plonked you back in a queue when you'll eventually get your questions answered by a completely different person.

I get that some times you need to confirm details in writing but actually I reckon in my experience it's 99% the advisor can't be arsed doing an iota more than necessary

Teenager thinks this is usual and I am just being a Mum. I now just fuel myself with coffee and silent rage.

//

You've summed it up perfectly