Customer service - good or bad

[mabster]

My experiences with o2 I'd rather not discuss as the profanities would not be suitable for this nor any other forum.

 

I do however have tale of misery which turned to one of joy

It was a dark and stormy night in which I ordered my new didgeridoo. It was a beautiful Ironbark Eucalyptus one, with amaizng carvings and paintwork on it.

I was most excited but somewhat dubious about it being sent with.. dare I say it.. DHL.

Ok I've sworn once D..H...L

Next day delivery.. hmm in the case of Royal Mail special delivery, yes. DHL= 5 Days.

Upon it's arrival I instantly knew something was wrong. On lifting the package there was some 'movement' and then my worst nightmare came to a reality !

The didge had been snapped in transit! I was horrified and since D... refuse to insure wooden goods I was expecting the worst.

On phoning the man who owns the didge shop I was advised to send him images over. A few minutes later I recieved an e-mail and a phone call.

Crisis averted he was willing to replace the didge (even though theres no insurance claim) as long as I contribute to the postage.

Now thats service!!! We are not talking about £20 here but £190. I was speachless. What could of been a terrible situation was averted by that mans kindness! I shall be eternally gratefull to him. The replacement is being sent out on monday by parcel force.

 

A very happy Mabby.

[nautim]

I have a Creative Zen Touch which I bought almost 2 years ago. About 11 1/2 months into it's life I managed to check how high it bounces. It bounces well, but is rendered unuseable by it....

 

I emailed them, knowing I had dropped it but thought I would try their customer service, expecting to be asked about it and was given a series of upgrades etc to try to sort it. I duly did these and when I contacted them again they sent me address to return it to.

 

I then expected a pleasant letter saying - external damage... void... too bad. Instead I received an email telling me that my replacement was on it's way. After I got it, there was an email checking that it was all ok and had arrived on time.

 

You got the same person for all your communications and each reply was within 24 hrs, answered each part of my 'What do I try next? clearly and didn't seem to think you were some sort of pest.

 

I also sent an email complimenting them on their service. This got a thank you back.

 

I've been impressed by Creative.

[Ghostrider]

.....Bank of Scotland are crap also.

 

Definitely the truest thing I've read in a while....

 

When BoS were plain old BoS a more knowledgable, helpful and polite customer service you'd have been hard pressed to find. Then. *cue ominous music" came the big merger with the Halifax to form HBoS, and all that was getting close on to perfect suddenly liquidised in to a pile of sh**e....

 

Various "conversations" over the last few years have gone thus:

 

First they did was withdrawn the ability to call individual branches, forcing you to call a call centre, during one conversation I was told, "We don't know, you need to contact your branch for that". So, I asks for a number for my branch, and was told, we don't give those out, but I'll call your branch and ask. Ends up I ask her a question, she repeats it in to the second phone she's holding connected to Commercial Street, gets their reply, repeats it to me, I tell her my answer, she repeats it to Commercial Street, repeats their reply back to me....ad infinitum......and this is "progress"

 

Another time I called to check on the route and time of their van (this was before it blew over someplace in the northern hills...), seems anyplace south of Gulberwick is not recognised by the HBoS computer, or if it is she couldn't find it, as we went round the houses everyplace bar the south end, then she says that she'd read out everything listed for Shetland....did we sink or get blown away down this end and nobody noticed 8O

 

Last January they were due to issue me a replacement Card, it never arrived, so they were called and with one week remaining on the old card the replacement arrived. It was the wrong one.... and not only was it wrong, they'd somehow managed to cancel the last week remaining on the old one, which they vehmently denied doing, but all the machines in the local shops said differently. They were supposed to be sending the right replcement card, but a couple of weeks later it was still a no show, so more calls.....After being shunted back and forth between 3 or 4 different people I finally ended up with some guy who appeared to at least understand what type of card it was I was talking about, which the front line minions I'd been lumbered with previously had only given the impression they maybe vaguely understood. His response to the problem ws surprisingly brief and simple...."We don't issue those type of cards any more, we discontinued them last May"....Well, thankyou, it would have been "nice" to have been told sometime during the seven months that have passed, it would have been even much nicer if the operator had told me that first I called.....

 

I could go on.....and on......and on.....but I'm not feeling in the mood to depress myself recalling more of their customer dis-service highlights.... Anyone care to recommend a bank that has customer service that at least has some clue? I certainly need to move my business elsewhere.....

[crofter]

Crisis averted he was willing to replace the didge (even though theres no insurance claim) as long as I contribute to the postage.

Now thats service!!! We are not talking about £20 here but £190. I was speachless. What could of been a terrible situation was averted by that mans kindness!

 

Presume he is paying less than 90 quid each then?!

[Pooks]

Anyone care to recommend a bank that has customer service that at least has some clue? I certainly need to move my business elsewhere.....

 

I have been with the Royal Bank of Scotland for some time now and I can't fault them. Any problems or queries have been resolved quickly.

[tarotangel]

Vodafone have great customer services. Sony Ericsson on the other hand not so good still trying to get an answer to a query 3 months later

[Scoobysue]

Anyone care to recommend a bank that has customer service that at least has some clue? I certainly need to move my business elsewhere.....

 

I have been with the Royal Bank of Scotland for some time now and I can't fault them. Any problems or queries have been resolved quickly.

 

Yep, I agree - they're very good. They are developing a bit of a 'selling' attitude lately for e.g. loans, insurances, savings thingies etc but that's just the businesss they're in. They always make me as the customer feel a wee bit 'special' and nothing like the fiscally irresponsible liability that I am.

[ArabiaTerra]

A word of warning about the RBS, they are vicious with their charges. They apply them instantly if you make a mistake. None of this namby-pamby waiting till the beginning of the next month stuff for the RBS.

 

Other than that, I haven't been with them long enough to comment on their customer service, though I can tell you that their on-line banking simply does not work if you only have a basic bank a/c.

 

Actually, on reflection, the one thing I have phoned them about, they told me a load of crap. This was the Lerwick branch rather than the South call centre.

 

In truth, they are a bunch of wank*rs like all banks!

[david]

I've used the RBS online banking for a couple of years, and its always worked fine for me, even with a 'basic' account.

[Ally]

RBS are indeed savage with their charges - and when it comes to the Lerwick bank it's hit or miss as to whether they refund you (or at least cut you some slack with regard to compound charges)

 

They seem to base their refund policy on the mood or personality of the person you get when you call the branch...

 

As for vodaphone having good customer support, they must have seriously improved it very recently, as when I was with them I'd spend an age on the phone, only to finally get through and be faced with an incompetent scouse boy or girl, who would invariable walk me through all my security details, only tell me that "we're sorry like but dee, er ,system's down at da moment like". it happened so often that I couldn't help but entertain the notion that these people where just making up system problems to avoid working...

 

 

 

[DarkstarIII]

8O Royal Mail took 4 days to deliver something that was next day delivery... I was paying for Total broadband here for a few days before I actually got it..

 

I was meant to get it on Thursday and I phoned up BT and they said that they had sent it so I then phoned PARCELFORCE in Aberdeen.. they said that they had handed it to ROYAL MAIL on tuesday... and that it was in LERWICK on wednesday mornings boat... (taking into consideration UP HELLY Aa.. and the fact that wednesday was in fact a public holiday) in shetland.

 

I phoned Lerwick post office and spoke to a guy and gave him the package number and asked him to locate it, and he disappeared for about a minute and came back and said that the only thing that he could suggest was that I wait and see if it came the next day! HOW HELPFUL!

 

I thought that it would come on or friday... but no it didnt... saturday it came... I was gutted.. and a peerie bit pee'd aff wi the non-helpful attitude!