Technology has made customer service go backwards

[HelloUniverse]

So I ordered some gifts from M&S yesterday (11th) for delivery on the 16th to my sister for her birthday who lives 3 hours away, one of the items was a lovely bunch of flowers. When i saw the confirmation a bit later i noticed the address was mine and not hers, so I called customer service to see if i could change the address or cancel. They have a 30 minute window to cancel or amend orders, unfortunately i missed that window by 3 minutes!

Naturally i got the 'computer says no' response, at which i questioned why they had a human to talk to if they could only repeat what the computer said. Surely the whole point of customer service is to identify ways of helping the customer and override any computer processes in place if they felt it was justified? In this case i'm sure someone working in 'customer service' would have had the compassion to assist. The items still haven't even been dispatched and although i can eventually send the other items back and get a refund, i can't do anything with the flowers as it's a perishable item. If this was a small florist they would have said 'of course, let me change the address for you'. I feel technology has streamlined so much it has really taken out the common sense approach to customer service.

Well, not really. They might be using technology as a means to scrimp on customer service though! Technology can make customer service much much better if companies chose to use it to the benefit the customer, rather than another way to cut costs.

I feel that since Covid no one wants to help anyone now. If it's their job or not everyone is out for themselves. People are cunts.

I do agree with you wholeheartedly in general terms. There was a thread on this a few days ago. There is too much terrible design that takes no account of the customer's experience - we are just obliged to jump through whatever hoops they want.

In this case though, you could have rung up a florist local to your sister and spoken to them to put an arrangement together and deliver, or bought from them online. I bet they all have websites and email addresses. You chose to go through M&S - it's probably cheaper and/or easier - and the price you pay is you've lost the personal touch that is still available from a small business. It's easier than ever before to "shop local" 3 hours away from you. Easy to be wise after the event though.

It's almost impossible to find email addresses or contact phone numbers for a lot of businesses.
Customer service generally is appalling but the worst experiences I've had have been with energy companies, and of course the absolutely woeful Virgin media.

I’m currently locked out of my eBay account due to actions eBay required me to take, having sold two items for collection only. The problem is that the phone number on my account is a landline but has been categorised as a mobile number and so only text verification is available. This doesn’t work, at least not on my particular landline phone.

Customer services have escalated the issue to the relevant department which may or may not sort it within 72 hours. Meanwhile no-one can communicate with the buyers and potential buyers who are interested in other items still for sale. No-one can refund buyers who have paid money and aren’t getting any communication from me. They’re completely in the dark. I look like an incompetent scammer and customer services can only make soothing but ultimately useless noises.

I need to keep an eye on my email account for a response from eBay but I am dreading the buyer messages. Just my tale of woe.

Whathappensnowplease · Today 10:27

It's almost impossible to find email addresses or contact phone numbers for a lot of businesses.

That’s deliberate.

The tech works brilliantly if everything goes smoothly. If there is some sort of hitch then it's a complete nightmare.

A PP is right, they use the tech to scrimp on employing proper people to talk to when things go wrong.

Tech isn't designed to make anything go smoothly.

Tech is used to save money, chat bots, and "call handling software" all designed to get you the customer to hang up/give up/throw yourself off a building, the whole process is designed for you the customer to go to their "portal"

But all the vast majority of people want to do is talk to a human being who speaks good english.

I ve v recently tried to talk to Openreach about a tree fallen across the phone line of a vulnerable and elderly housebound person, who uses the land line for their life line pendant & blocking access to their property.

Tried the council... that was a joke, a circle of blame and mis information.

It was impossible to get through to anyone that this needs dealing with asap, so i paid for a tree surgeon to deal with it myself but upon seeing the situation, the tree surgeon did it for nothing!

Trying to get any coherent response from Parcelforce has been a nightmare.

They left me a card, stating the parcel had been left ar a Post Office seven miles away.
Can't drive post surgery.
No bus service.
Website said the parcel number didn’t exist.
Nowhere to go, on the website merry go round.
Tried phoning. Again, automated system with nowhere relevant to go and no humans to explain situation to.
Tried the automated customer services assistant. After detailing the issue, it said it was terminating the discussion, and did. WTF?

Bristling with impotent rage, if I had happened upon a Parcelforce employee at that time, I might well have committed violence.

Crap customer service exists in person too! You really can't say that being able to speak to someone on the phone or face to face is always a better experience - especially these days, it really isn't.

Try taking something faulty back to Argos and they'll argue till they're blue in the face that you have to contact the supplier/manufacturer directly. They trot out the same spiel whether you go into the store, or phone up their "help" line, etc. They don't know what the law says!

Likewise, not too long ago, I tried returning something I'd bought online into a physical Currys store - they tried to argue that since I'd bought online I could only return online by post. They don't even read their own policies!

Even more disappointingly, I inadvertently bought an out of date box of chocolates from M&S. Opened them and ate a couple, but they tasted "off", so I checked the date on the box and they were 3 months out of date. Took them back to M&S to swap them and at the till/desk, they just kept trotting out the same spiel of "we don't refund or exchange food items" like some demented robot. Just wouldn't accept it was out of date and then started arguing that I must have bought it months ago and forgot about them, even after me showing her my receipt. It was only when I went to the shelf, and picked up a handful of the same box, all out of date, and took them back to her that she very reluctantly agreed to let me exchange them!

So, no I don't think it's technology at all. It's stroppy, poor trained, ignorant customer facing staff that is the real problem, whether in person, on the phone, or online.

M&S irritate me by dispatching orders from different warehouses at different times. I made quite a large order recently and the items arrived in dribs and drabs over the course of a week. I would like one order to have everything I ordered together. I know they say they will be sent from different warehouses, but there’s no coordination.

Every time I have a message from Royal Mail about a delivery, their tracking number records an error, so I can never track the parcel for an estimated time of delivery.

I remember a time when ‘customer service’ was going over and above, problem solving to maintain a reputation of a company, now it’s just full
of jobs worth following a script whether it’s UK or abroad, it’s all the same lack of real customer empathy with no accountability.

Yup. I've been stuck in a chat bot/automated email loop with Evri recently and it made me want to scream. You cannot speak to a human, it's ridiculous.

That was when customers would be loyal to their preferred suppliers/shops etc so the organisations would bend over backwards to keep happy repeat customers.

Unfortunately, now everyone wants the cheapest. For the vast majority, it doesn't matter how good the experience and customer service on previous occasions, they'll always go for someone else who offers to do it cheaper.

Even organisations with really poor customer service can still get lots of custom by being a bit cheaper than their competitors.

It really is a race to the bottom. Very sad.

So true!