Your best and worst customer service experiences [rant & praise]

Elmo

busman wrote: »

Was in today to SW office in Mallow to sign back on after FAS course and to add newborn
Have to say that they were very helpful, said that they would get it processed as quickly as possible, checked my file to see if they had everything, asked if I wanted some copies of my daughters birth cert. Gave me a name and number on a sticky to call on Thursday to see if payment will be available.

Very happy customer!

Congratulations on the Newborn.* Do you think a fas course is a suitable environment for one so young?


*I assume its a baby

tiger2

Dell computers in Limerick - ordered 5 yes 5 new pc's friom them and took 10 weeks - also had to cancel my credit card as they tried to debit it twice and the bank contacted me to say they thought my details had been hacked and to cancel the card immediately. 27 phone calls emails etc and they then wouldnt deliver as they said they had no payment!!!

stantheman8

Top 4 Customer Care CNUTS:

1. hotels.com - took me 5 months to be refunded for a hotel downgrade that I had to take as a result of them not having secured the hotel I had booked.

2. Eircom - I spent many painful hours trying to decipher their ridiculous billing mechanisms, double charging then refunding, new accounts and installation fees. And every single time I called "customer care" (use the term loosely) there was no record of my previous calls and I had to explain my story from the start again. 'Mare!

3. A promotions company that shall not be spoken of called something like MDC. Will never NEVER darken the door of anything organised by this band of cowboys. EVER.

4. Sky - completed the new account registration form online. Received an email to say my Sky order had been placed. Got a call from a blocked number 3 days later, somebody claiming to be from Sky asking me for my credit card number and bank account details! I told them that I had submitted all of this information on the online registration form only to be told that the system had been down for the past few weeks and it could be another few weeks before it was back up and running again. Wrote a letter to their complaints department asking if this was standard Sky practice. Got non-descript response from Sky stating "our representatives are trained to be polite, courteous and prepared to offer confirmation that they are calling on behalf of Sky".

Customer Care Gods:
1. FBD - always have friendly customer service staff who seem to be non-scripted but still know their stuff.

2. hmmm ....can only think of one for now

bornalady

Rant....
NTL have possibly the worst customer service. My broadband service is terribly slow. I've made numerous complaints and nothing has been done about it.

Praise....
Vodafone's customer care is great. Unbeknownst to me, I racked up domestic data charges (my friend gave me an iPhone and I wasn't on a data tariff). Vodafone credited me back and put me onto the correct tariff. Great service and haven't had any problems since.

Anyone else experience 'bill shock' but it was turned into positive experience???

dinneenp

Karoma wrote: »

Belkin: I had the misfortune of dealing with a clueless idiot that ignored pretty much every bit of information given over several emails, despite repeated clarification(Using Basic English after a while just in case it was something lost in translation). She tried to close the case off when the problem was clearly unresolved. Then, closed the case off after I explained that it was not even near resolved. So many emails later... got nowhere. Damn their crap hardware. Damn their 'service'.

Must be luck of the draw- I have a belklin router, about 5 years old. But their support still helps me out with it and are very good.

Kimono-Girl

AA Ireland. :mad:

last saturday an elderly neighbour got locked out of his house (no shoes or socks or coat or anything on him), he had his keys locked in the car, so we called the AA to get the keys out, as he is a paying member for years.

we were told he'd have to wait until monday as they had no staff in our area (cork city). And they hung up the phone on us! very rude and very unhelpful/ what is the point in having it if there is nothing they can do when you need them most! :mad:

and after checking their website:

AA Membership gives you :

• Roadside assistance 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
  

You're also covered for:

• Keys lost or locked in car
• Punctures

handsome ken

I've had both good and bad customer service recently. the good one was Sliderobes. We ordered new sliderobes for the daughters bedroom and two days later an appointment was made for a designer to come to the house to measure up. she arrived at the appointed time and date - measured up, gave us a print out of the design from her laptop and the cost involved. we accepted the quote and she gave us some dates for the fitting. The fitter arrived at the appointed time and introduced himself and shook my hand. he got to work and finished in about five hours not stopping even when i brought him a cup of tea and some biscuits. when he was finished, he cleaned up the bedroom, took away the old wardrobes and made sure we were happy with the job before he left. Would definately recommend Sliderobes to anyone.

on the other side, my local spar recently had me boiling mad. I went in to do the lotto but there was no pen in the display stand. I went to the till nad asked for a pen to fill in my lotto slip. I went back to the stand which was about three feet away from teh till and made out the lotto slip. I went back to the till only to be told by a non-national working behind the till "machine not working". I asked him could he not have told me that when i asked for the pen only to get the answer "machine not working" and a shrug of the shoulders. Anyway i needed to make some M50 toll payments and when i asked for two trips on the M50 i was told "machine not working". It will be a long time before i use that spar again if this is the standard of customer service they provide. I know it's probably not their fault the machines were not working at the time (two weeks ago) but i've heard from others that as of last night they were still not working.

joxers25

Hi All,

Just want to recommend the following:

http://www.irishappliancerepair.com/

I had an issue with my Dishwasher not empting and rang these guys.

Instead of sending someone out to fix.
The guy gave me the instructions over the phone and I fixed it myself!

He could have made a handy few €€€ sending someone out to fix the issue (and i would have been glad to pay it!) Instead he talked me through the fix over the phone.

Delighted!

Dues Bellator

busman wrote: »

Was in today to SW office in Mallow to sign back on after FAS course and to add newborn
Have to say that they were very helpful, said that they would get it processed as quickly as possible, checked my file to see if they had everything, asked if I wanted some copies of my daughters birth cert. Gave me a name and number on a sticky to call on Thursday to see if payment will be available.

Very happy customer!

give it a few months that soon wears thin.

harvester of sorrow

Just saw this post,
Bought a bike for my daughters b-day in the cork branch,went in on the 28 of nov. with the missus had a look around and picked out a bike.Paid for the bike with cash and the guy at the desk said the bike would be ready to be collected about 3 days later,he also circled this day on the receipt which says on it "expected collection date".
In the meantime,bad road conditions,both of us working,and the fact my daughters b-day party wasnt till last week we didnt have a chance to collect it.So about 2 weeks ago i went in to collect my bike(as it was paid for),with the receipt...and no bike.The guy at the counter said that i should have came in on the date on the receipt to collect the bike,and because i didn't MY bike was sold on!:mad:
I asked him why they didnt he give me a ring,as they took all my details when i paid,and he said they didint have time to be ringing everyone??
To cut a long story short i eventually got sorted in time for my daughters b-day....so you might think no big deal?
But 3 years ago i bought my daughters first bike in the same store and went in on time to collect her bike and they didnt even have one in stock on that day:eek:(the day before her 3rd birthday party)they hat to get one down from the waterford branch that night.
My advice to any one getting anything here is pay the extra few euro and shop elsewhere.I certainly will be.
You pay peanuts and you get monkeys.

ktoom69

NTL / UPC Broadband shower of time wasting assholes, got to be the worst ever service i have endured, never again , gona buy me a freeview sat tv dish and tell em remove Broadband and TV

Dues Bellator

ktoom69 wrote: »

NTL / UPC Broadband shower of time wasting assholes, got to be the worst ever service i have endured, never again , gona buy me a freeview sat tv dish and tell em remove Broadband and TV

i think they have improved bigtime in the last year or so.

Elmo

almanu wrote: »

i think they have improved bigtime in the last year or so.

UPC provide an excellent service. I find like with most customer care call centres that they are unwilling to, Call you back or Issue emails to their staff of allow their staff use of custcare@whatevercompany.com.

Good service if you have broadband and telephone with them. However their customer care service is not worth TV alone, when you can get Free To Air TV.

wmpdd3

Praise for An Post, I posted my christmas cards on monday evening, realised I missed Mondays post, so they were collected Tuesday.

Got 3 calls this morning from people saying they got my calls, mostly around leinster, fair play. They dont guarantee delivery after the 17th for Ireland, I got next day delivery on the 21st.

blahblahbla

　
Do not buy into the O2 network in Ireland again!!!

Over 2 weeks ago I sent 2 unlocking requests to O2 to get my Iphone unlocked, I did it online first and than rang in to confirm it was done and did it again over the phone.

Today I rang customer services to find out why I hadn’t heard back from them and they tell me there is no record of a request been sent in :mad: ……..

I talked to the woman on the other end and she told me that apple are the ones who handle the unlocking and she put in another unlocking request and patched my through to the apple customer care.
When I was talking to the woman on the other end for apple she told me that they don’t handle the unlocking but 02 do:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Needless to say I was livid, is that a real word I don’t even know anymore I’m still that mad, so once again after “Agent Apple” told me she couldn’t reconnect me back to 02 I had to ring them again, go through that pointless babble by the there electronic recording that seems to tell me everything except how to talk to a person until the last option.
Finally I got back talking to a different woman and surprise surprise no record of my last attempt to to request my unlock……………..

I lost it at this point I told her what the apple person said to me , she than told me that apple was lying to me and that they request unlocks off them and it 14 working days.

What else could I do but put in a request for another unlock and demand an confirmation email that this was put, which by the way, apparently they cant do that either.

So Im without my phone for another 2 weeks.
What can I do to get this done before the new year, this is there fault not mine?
Just got an email confirmation that a request has been put in.

gazmic1

So the wifes PC or to be more exact her graphics card packed up. The PC cost 1200 euro in PC world in Dundalk 18months ago. Ok these things happen. I go into to PC World on tuesday and talk to a salesman and tell him the problem that I'm 99% sure the Graphics card is fecked. He told me to bring in the tower and they will check the graphics card and if its gone I'll buy a new 1 there. If its not they will run a diagnostic to check the problem I said fair enough.:D

So in I go today with the tower and ask the guy at the counter could he just check the graphics card and if its gone I'll have a new 1 and an expensive 1 at that. NOT a chance he wouldn't even touch it unless I give him 60 euro and pretty rude too. :mad:So I told him I bought it there 18 months ago and bought a 19" monitor less than a year ago for over 250 quid and could he just check it please. :rolleyes:He more or less told me to F Off unless I give him 60 bucks.:eek:

So I left went 3 doors down to Maplin spent 149.98 euro on a graphics card. PC back working games galore. Wife happy I'm happy. So much for an aftersales service. It is the last time I'll go there for my computer stuff and I'll be getting myself a new laptop in the new year sales.

wmpdd3

@gazmic1
should have paid nothing, threatened small claims court, got it done for free.

Elessar

gazmic1 wrote: »

So the wifes PC or to be more exact her graphics card packed up. The PC cost 1200 euro in PC world in Dundalk 18months ago. Ok these things happen. I go into to PC World on tuesday and talk to a salesman and tell him the problem that I'm 99% sure the Graphics card is fecked. He told me to bring in the tower and they will check the graphics card and if its gone I'll buy a new 1 there. If its not they will run a diagnostic to check the problem I said fair enough.:D

So in I go today with the tower and ask the guy at the counter could he just check the graphics card and if its gone I'll have a new 1 and an expensive 1 at that. NOT a chance he wouldn't even touch it unless I give him 60 euro and pretty rude too. :mad:So I told him I bought it there 18 months ago and bought a 19" monitor less than a year ago for over 250 quid and could he just check it please. :rolleyes:He more or less told me to F Off unless I give him 60 bucks.:eek:

So I left went 3 doors down to Maplin spent 149.98 euro on a graphics card. PC back working games galore. Wife happy I'm happy. So much for an aftersales service. It is the last time I'll go there for my computer stuff and I'll be getting myself a new laptop in the new year sales.

You should post this in the Currys/PC world forum (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1333), Declan is the managing director and I'm sure he'll want to hear the feedback (might even tempt you back).

wmpdd3

@blahblahbla
unlock codes available here:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055855174

Larsist

I shop a lot on-line and this is the worst service I have ever received.

I ordered a top for my wife a couple of weeks ago from littlewoods Ireland. I paid for the top with my Visa Debit card and it was due to arrive a week ago. It actually arrived a couple of days late but considering the weather conditions, that was to be expected. When the package arrived I opened it just to check it was what I ordered only to find inside a Doodle Penguin (Crayola toy). Although I was slightly annoyed I understand that mistakes can be made and I quickly called the littlewoods help desk to resolve. I explained the issue to the agent on the phone, she apologises for the error and said she will get the correct item sent out. However she then asked me for my Visa card number. I explained to the girl that I just want what I ordered and had already paid for, but to my dismay I was told that is not Littlewood's policy.

So be WARNED. Littlewoodsireland.ie policy: Once you order and pay for an item, they will send you out what ever they have lying around no matter what the value. If you don't like what you receive you can send it back however if you actually want what you originally ordered you will have to order it again.

mikedublin

I have had a very bad experience with The Travel Department. I booked a holiday tour to China with them which was due to depart last wednesday. This included a flight ticket from Dublin to Beijing via London Heathrow with British Airways.

To cut a very long story short - when the snow delayed the first flight from Dublin to London, our group arrived in London and had missed the connecting flight on to Beijing. The Travel Department just told us to come back home and the whole thing was cancelled.

So they didn't re-book us on another later flight, or re-route us , just cancelled everything. They promised a refund, but have left us all with ruined Christmases.

borderlinemeath

mikedublin wrote: »

I have had a very bad experience with The Travel Department. I booked a holiday tour to China with them which was due to depart last wednesday. This included a flight ticket from Dublin to Beijing via London Heathrow with British Airways.

To cut a very long story short - when the snow delayed the first flight from Dublin to London, our group arrived in London and had missed the connecting flight on to Beijing. The Travel Department just told us to come back home and the whole thing was cancelled.

So they didn't re-book us on another later flight, or re-route us , just cancelled everything. They promised a refund, but have left us all with ruined Christmases.

My family were due to travel to Italy on a holiday with the Travel Department last april but it was cancelled last minute due to the Volcanic Ash Cloud.
It took about a month to get their refund but they did get it - without much hassle, so at least you should get reimbursed easily enough.

Not much comfort after having your Christmas hols ruined.

Catari Jaguar

Bought a smart phone and got a new contract and new tarriff so I could go online and download apps etc. ****ing thick at Carphone Warehouse didn't put it through, Meteor dumbasses charging me for internet usage at €20 per mb - yes, €80 for an app. I get a bill for €2400. I ring and go to Meteor shop, talk to about 7 people and spend about 40 minutes on the phone each time. They're STILL unaware that I'm on a new contract and have been sending me in circles for past 2 months. I got cut off and spent Christmas time with no way of contacing friends or family. Pricks. Still cut off - bill still not sorted.

jill_valentine

Bus Eireann are mindbendingly sh*te. Jesus Christ. I've spent the entire morning trying to avail of their "service". Their timetabling systems are unreadable, contradictory and well hidden, and their customer service representatives are absolutely clueless even if you can actually get through to them - I've been given completely different information by every single person I've spoken to.

This is a public transport system and it matters - thanks to Bus Eireann's complete f*cking failure to do anything approximating their job, I'm going to have to miss a day of work on top of the morning I've just spent in customer service hell.

I cannot wait to get my driving license, so I can drive to their offices in person and post poo through their letter boxes.

Fey!

Good - Flynn Furniture in Westport. We got a new kitchen from them, which they did a fantastic job on. No hassle, and never any problem to contact them about changes. Also a great after sales service for the niggly bits.

Considering the BS we had in other kitchen providers, they really made life easy.

Bad - DAA and Aer Lingus. I had relatives coming from Britain and Poland for the Christmas. DAA's website refered to "breaking" problems on the runway, a simple mistake which doesn't inspire confidence in those who supposedly look after our safety.

As for Aer Lingus, their website on December 23rd had their updates dated December 16th, just to add to all of the flight confusion at the time.

Citylink - I had to cancel tickets with them. I rang and left a voicemail on December 23rd cancelling the tickets, and emailed them 5 minutes later, referencing the voicemail. They still haven't replied to me!

Vorsprung

Good experience today

Was in Milano's in Dundrum with the girlfriend today, sat down, ordered 2 pizzas. Noticed after about 30 minutes (chatting, didn't notice time pass) that people who had sat down after us were getting food before we had anything. Anyway said it to the waitress, who checks it out, comes back apologising. Manager comes out with pizzas 5 minutes late and says it's all on the house.

Tastes better when it's free!

dh0661

Vorsprung wrote: »

Manager comes out with pizzas 5 minutes late and says it's all on the house.
Tastes better when it's free!

NICE one

Dues Bellator

dh0661 wrote: »

NICE one

brilliant

Fey!

Firstly, a retraction. My last post gave out about Citylink not contacting me back; they emailed me today and gave me credit to use on another trip. They don't give refunds, which was something I wouldn't have expected anyway (despite GoBus refunding my uncle for his cancelled trip). So I'm a happy camper where Citylink is concerned again.

My second one is, believe it or not, a thumbs up for PC World (Galway). I was in there very late on Friday. Despite it being New Years Eve (the only time I could get in), I wasn't rushed out, and was given excellent advice by a member of staff who seemed to have every price and spec or every laptop in his head! I got the display model, which some helpful member of the public had locked up her own information into. On Friday I thought I could sort it myself, so it wasn't a problem. I was told that if I had any hassle sorting it what to do, and if I couldn't to pop back in with it. Unfortunately my skills didn't match my ego, and I had to pop in this morning for them to do it. They told me the reset would take about two and a half hours, and two and a half hours later I got a call to say it was sorted. Very helpful staff, and excellent service.

The Lovely Muffin

Tesco.ie / Tesco Mullingar

Placed an online order with them last night for delivery today, got a phone call from them this morning saying one of their vans had broken down and they wouldn't be able to deliver to me until between 5-6pm this evening, asked me if this was ok, I said yes it's fine.

Guy arrived at 5.10pm and drops everything off, and then informs me Tesco are refunding me the €5.50 delivery charge as they delivered my order late.

Fair play to them, I wasn't expecting them to refund me for anything. I'll definitely be ordering online with them again, and no, not because they've refunded me, but because of the good service they provided.

I'd definitely recommend them.