Sometimes we just hit against the end stops of bad service - it's seemingly everywhere, and the situation is getting worse. But, every now and again we come across something truly beyond the bounds of bad service - and that's what this topic is about.

I want you to name and shame, and explain why. We're not judging; we only want to look for patterns in the causes of the bad customer experience.

So, who wants to begin?

John

Or rather One to None Mobile Network Provider

Yes I had to phone and tell them I'd changed by address - simple procedure one would think! After numerous IVR options I found my self hanging in telecoms heaven somewhere. So tried again, the samething happened, on the third attempt I thought well if I design these things myself maybe if I choose another option I might get through to someone

I eventually got through and explained to the agent that there was something wrong with their IVRsystem and i'd been left suspended, er yes well um we're busy, so I said no its not working, you're losing customers, yes well we're busy he said again, what do you want!!

rude man, try and help these bods and it gets you nowhere!

This crowd were the worst for me! Little things like the extremely short musical loop which was fine for a while but then began to drive me mad. The call centre staff who could not give a damn about me as a customer or as an individual. I suppose I might have been a little bit harsh with this but their call centre really bugged me!!!

WW

Hi.

My first mobile was on the Cellnet network and although it worked well enough, on the odd occasion I had to call their call centre I was often shocked and stunned at how poor it was. I don't know if they've improved much since then; if not,I hope someone from Cellnet is reading this and comes on to either fight their corner or confirm changes! Orange, who I am now with, are much better, although not perfect.

Another pet hate is the Dabs customer service line - not so much for thetechnology implementation, but for the fact that the operators sometimes just don't give a damn and won't try to help. Sorry to say it, as I otherwise find the company great to deal with, but shoddy customer service is never excusable.

I'll stop now, shall I? Maybe we should even up the balance with a topic about good call centres... :-)

John

I had a good one, I have been booking a skiing holiday with Thomas cook and have been a right pain about it, making changes every couple of weeks etc ( not my fault but I am lead booker so I have to deal with drop outs etc )they have been courteous and helpful all of the times I phoned them, and always called back when they said they would, OK occasionally a bit later than they said they would but the problems are dealt with so I didn't mind.

Another one although they were more crazy than good, was 2wentys holidays ( bit like 18 - 30s ), I think they were all ex holiday reps when we phoned to pay money it was more entertaining than any other call centre I have phoned, they just started chatting about holidays etc and people we knew. I think thisone is only like that because their packages are targeted at the people who don't really care if they are called sir or madam or about politeness, I was a bit taken aback at first probably because I work in a call centre but after the initial shock it was good and made me actually enjoy talking to them.

I have a question though leading on from this do you all think that because we work in the industry it makes us more or less attentive to how we are treated. I.e do we put up with bad service as we understand why it is happening or are we more vigilant about it because we say that would never happen in my call centre ?

If you are looking for patterns, I think one you may find is 'nobody wants to take responsibility!' This is a personal experience that I share with all our new hires, just to let them know that WE are not going to provide service that sucks this bad! Bear with me, it's kinda long....
I bought one new car in my whole life. When the car came in (I had special-ordered it, as I wanted no spendy options, just a plain, cheap car) the dealer called and told me that one of the doors and the interior door panel were the wrong color - brown. The car was blue, inside and out, but for one of the rear passenger doors and the inside panel. I was not convinced that this was an 'oops' - SOMEONE must have noticed that as the car was leaving the factory! Well, thatproblem was fixed in just two days, and I thought all was well. I was WRONG! For the first 6 months that I owned the car, it spent TO THE DAY half its time in the shop, as it never ran right. The dealer refused responsibility, stating it was the manufacturer's problem; the manufacturer refused responsibility, stating it was the dealer's problem. SO...I went out and bought some yellow tagboard and a very large black marker. I cut out lemon shapes from the tagboard, and wrote LEMON in large black letters on all the shapes. Then I drove to the dealership, put the lemons in the windows of the car (which still had the dealership sticker on the trunk/boot) and parked on the public street in front of the dealership and sat there....for about 90 seconds. The dealer came flying out and demanded that I move the car. I refused unless he gave me a new engine. He refused, and I told him I would sit there until he gave in. He tried EVERYTHING to put me off, and I stood firm. He said it would take months to order a newengine, schedule a time to put it in, etc etc etc. I told him he was going to a) give me a loaner car for the weekend; b) take an engine out of one of his cars on the lot of that same model and put it in my car; c) have my car ready at 8:00am the following Monday (this was Friday pm) and d) sit on his duff and wait all those months he claimed it would take to order a new engine so he could replace the one he had taken to put in my car.
GOT WHAT I WANTED! And the kicker is....I told this tale to a class of new hires, one of whom used to work as a receptionist at that very dealership. She was cracking up, and at the end of the story, told me that was the first thing she heard when she was hired, and that I was 'a legend' at that dealership. There was a 23 year gap between the event and the retelling, and they are STILL TALKING ABOUT ME!!!! I think I made an impact.....*lol*

My story is short, although goes on for many months!!
I joined BT on its surftime offer with Lineone (now Tiscali). Following over 40 experiences of being booted (disconnected without warning) in just 2 weeks, I cancelled. Would you beleive it, I hadto call a PREMIUM RATE CANCELLATION LINE, which cost 50p per minute (min 5 mins).
Upon my next bill from BT, they had ignmored my request and continued to bill me. BT REFUSED to assist me saying it was my problem and nothing to do with them. I must contact the premium rate line again. This situation was repeated twice more and between May and October this year, I had made over 10 calls to BT, 4 to Lineone and what do you suppose was the result?
BT threatened to disconnect me for unpaid surftime charges!!!!
It was only when I called the very nice (and empowered) people at the BT Chairmans office that there was a ray of hope. BT have a customer service department at head office in London. They are there to resolve the more vocal disputes and actually offered to make all the calls for me. I await my next bill to see if this has been done, but a message to BT - If you have just paid me 'lip service' and not dealt with the situation, you will not have heard the last from me!
The moral of the story is that empowerment is key to customer relations and be you a new service provider or not, if a customer follows your procedures, never let them down, if you do, you will lose them.

Rachel,

I loved your story about the car dealership - it must have taken (cough) balls to do that, but it paid off. I'm impressed. So, I liked that one so much, does anyone else have any similar stories about 'getting your own way' when faced with the 'pass-the-buck' syndrome?

Keep them coming, people!

John

I recently was given the 'thumbs-up' to proceed at a parking garage by an attendant. I wanted him to make sure I could clear the clearance sign that was well above my camper. However, as my sister and I approached the ticket taking machine for parking,WHACK, the camper caught on an overhead beam, was shoved off the truck half-way, and we were stopped suddenly in our tracks. My sister and I were dumbfounded.

The tow-truck guys shoved the camper back up onto the bed of the truck askew, with pieces falling off and said, 'see ya'. The attendant feared he'd be fired, the manager didn't want to take responsibility for sending me off with a potentially hazardous camper. It cost me to be without my truck (didn't want to drive it with the threat of pieces of camper falling off, etc.) Finally, got a six-pack of bud and drove it to the dump. The two guys that helped me didn't even need to be bribed with the beer, but I gave it to them as thanks.

Ultimately, the insurance company denied my claim, saying that the attendent had said that he pointed toward the sign and that it was my responsibility to know the height of my camper. The fact that hanging clearance signs are a universal sign that says, "If you can pass under this sign, you'll make the clearance."

I decided to do some detective work, went to the parking garage. I said, "I'ld like to talk with Adam, and the other attendant, a kid with an ear ring in his ear, gave me his cell number and home phone number and even let me inthe booth to try to call him. Finally reached him in person although I didn't recognize him since he changed his hair from blond to black. He told me that he was honest in his report.

With that information, I tried to reach the supervisor of the agent who denied my claim. He wouldn't take my call or call me back, so after a month.
One day, I just called and wouldn't let the receptionist let me go. I explained my plight, that I didn't wish to annoy her, but that I figured this was the only way I could get results. She had me hold through lunch, through a meeting, phone calls and finally, my contact left the building. She asked me to write it out again and fax him. I did, and also his big boss. His boss returned my call. During the verycall, my call-waiting was beeping with local agents attempting to take care of my claim. Needless to say, things started to jump around here and I got my settlement.

Can't believe it took that much. It truly makes me sad, honestly.

Worst:
- IBM (with apologies to our IBM fellow member from Portsmouth) after buying a new PC - took about 6 months to get a solution (but still no 'satisfaction') - you don't want to hear it all!!!

Best:
- Virgin (every part I've come across)
- Direct Line (including a car recovery this week), and
- The one timeshare company that didn't keep phoning back when I turned down their offer!

0845 955 5314

Wait time according to their announcement

Sat morn : 20mins
Mon morn : 15mins
Tues morn: 10mins

My wait time after hearing their announcement....hang up every time.

I have to agree with Rachel that sometimes it feels like no one is prepared to take responsibility … or is it a case that the advisors are not given enough empowerment to take responsibility?

Big surprize here! Dell has been setting records for poor service.

I scoped out my PC purchase on the website, but I need a better video card than the onboard one, so I called in. After speaking with a sales guy, I was told that I couldn't have a different card. We rang off, with him promising to call me back. I found a way to order the card seperate, along with the PC, if I did it online. Two hours later, the rep called back and was shocked/disappointed that I already placed my order. Twigging that he probably lost comission on this, I asked to speak to his supervisor to get it fixed. After holding, the rep came back to relay the message that his supervisor was too busy to talk to me and that nothing could be done. Feeling bad, I got his op Id and e-mailed Dell. I never did hear back.

Meanwhile, three weeks later and 1 week overdue, the pc arrived... without the video card. 10 days later, with no sign of the card (even though Dell's site said it was shipped along with the pc), I called. This time, I got an outsourcer (you can always tell by the higher level of politness). I was told that my video card was not coming due to supply issues. I asked why I wasn't notified, and did not receive anything resembling an answer. When I asked what I should do about the lack of card, the embarassed rep suggested that perhaps I could try ordering it again. My response was to politely suggest that I would not wait another month for a video card that isn't coming because the order was cancelled. I went to a neaby retailer and found a better card at a lower price.

It's not hard to see where Dell's head is. While the reps were good, the company obviously ties their hands. I'll never do business with them again.

Jeff,

I take it from your spelling of 'Surprize' you are based in America.

Funny how companies can operate so differently on different continents.

I purchased a Dell PC 2 years ago - specified everything online, was able to track it's production and delivery every step of the way even down to which distribution depot it was currently at on it's journey to me. It was delivered within 3 days of purchase and arrived exactly as spec, the only problem was a slight bend in the keyboard - they sent out a new one very quickly.

About 12 months in when I got an issue with one of the DVD drives they sent out a new item very quickly and I was allowed the option of self fitting even though it was still under full warranty. At the end of the process the service desk asked if I would complete a feedback document and I think this is key to why the service is slick - they are managed on this feedback so it is in their interest to give good service and get good feedback.

The Service centre was in India and the PC was built in Ireland (Eire).

Bite you tongue! I'm a Canadian who can't spell!

I would imagine that the geography does make a difference. The sales agent I suspect was in the Phillipines, the CSR was in Ontario, the PC was built and shipped from Tennessee via ground transport to our fair island of Newfoundland.

Would have been faster if they built it in Erie and sent it by boat.