Fed up of poor service from companies.

Oh yes! Just today I've tried to register a private pension for an online account. Email back saying I failed security even though I'd entered everything correctly. So 45+ minutes on the phone, passed to 3 different teams before finally being told one dept has my new address, another dept still has my old address even though I'd called them 2 years ago to update it and told all was done. I hate phone calls as struggled due to being very hard if hearing so that in itself is a trial. The final straw was being told that my particular pension can't be managed online arggh!

I don't think many people actually understand customer service anymore.

We've just had BT in to upgrade to full fibre broadband. Sounded reasonable when we talked to them back in May. 2 weeks ago their contractor came to put the new cable in. Last week their engineer arrived to connect the cable to our network. It didn't work. Then we were told the contractors couldn't come back for over a week to fix the cable. They've sorted out a mini network for us so we do have some internet now but it's a bit limited. They are due back next week to complete it.

I find it difficult to understand that they can come here and disrupt an existing system then leave it for a few weeks before fixing it. For me good customer care would be 'Wow - we got it wrong but we'll be back tomorrow to fix it'.

I don't care that they got it wrong. Bad stuff happens some times. I do care that the best they can do is create another appointment when it is convenient to them to come back and fix it. It's not BT, it's their contractor, over whom BT have no authority at all apparently.

Not even much point in moving from BT - they are pretty good a lot of the time and no one else is consistently any better.

Today I was on the phone for nearly an hour to Midea about a new no frost fridge freezer that has plenty of frost building up in the freezer. This involved taking photos of the fridge, receiving a text message and sending the photos via text all whilst still talking on the phone to the agent. I hate it, this brave new world really stresses me out.

AmberGran - I have to contact BT because I have intermittent broadband connection and my bill has gone up to £56.44 a month which is too much. Not looking forward to that one. Oh yes, and My TV Box is not really behaving itself either.

I’m a Sky t.v. Customer. At least once a month they ring to try and persuade me to take out their broadband. I refuse on the basis that trying to speak to someone at Sky proves very challenging even when I get through I’m told I’ve come through to the wrong department and give me another number!! All the while with a message stating that everything can be done much easier on line!!
By the way I’m with Plusnet and get to speak to someone almost immediately if there’s a problem.

Royal Mail are awful! Another that's awful is Barclaycard! No chat although they keep saying app has,it does not,no contact us, nothing! Always have to phone..complete pain...

I had huge problems with PayPal after my husband died.

If I ever use a company that turns out to have good CS then I stick with them like a limpet. companies I will definitely stick with are GTech, Plusnet, Octopus Energy to name a few. Unfortunately we have no option with Royal Mail but I wish Amazon Prime delivered letters.

LesLee7
NatWest has an "older person's" dedicated phone line.

My mother-in-law did lots of her banking that way.
It was answered quickly and people were really helpful.

Top marks!

It may not have been called an "older person's" line but if not then maybe "vulnerable" of some such.

Worth looking into.

Car tax took 48 mins on the phone, the advisor put him back in the system without helping and he's exempt anyway as he's disabled. Life is hard enough at the moment without all that.

Freddies Flowers - the best.
HMRC and NS&I the worst.
Everyone else somewhere inbetween.

Oh yes, it’s just exasperating isn’t it, what has gone wrong with this country, world, society etc?

I’m a volunteer at a local theatre and also do the garden there. The car park is operated by an ANRP parking system but I cannot always get into the building to validate my car. So I get a ticket, £60 or £100 if left for 14 days, of course I always appeal them (4 atm!) and some have been reduced to £20 which I pay straight away. I’ve now received a 2nd reminder for one of them that I’ve already paid! The company is Civil Enforcement Ltd, based in Liverpool. They have the wrong telephone number on their web site and there is no other way of getting through to them unless you make a complaint, of which I’ve done, but their only answer is to send letters threatening debt collectors! I’ve consulted my MP as I’m actually really stressed.

Evri are the same. They have lost two of my parcels as they didn’t update info at their end.
Then you have to chat to a bot 😩
John Lewis & Argos is another. You have to chat to someone in Africa, who I can’t understand.
Oh for good old fashioned customer services.

Silvertwigs

Oh yes, it’s just exasperating isn’t it, what has gone wrong with this country, world, society etc?

I’m a volunteer at a local theatre and also do the garden there. The car park is operated by an ANRP parking system but I cannot always get into the building to validate my car. So I get a ticket, £60 or £100 if left for 14 days, of course I always appeal them (4 atm!) and some have been reduced to £20 which I pay straight away. I’ve now received a 2nd reminder for one of them that I’ve already paid! The company is Civil Enforcement Ltd, based in Liverpool. They have the wrong telephone number on their web site and there is no other way of getting through to them unless you make a complaint, of which I’ve done, but their only answer is to send letters threatening debt collectors! I’ve consulted my MP as I’m actually really stressed.

Have a look on YouTube for advice on these types of situations.
I was panicking as I had a message from a parking firm called ‘go park’.
I know I haven’t parked anywhere as I’ve been away.
But realised it’s a scam as no time, date, or evidence.

all this started in lock down, for obvious reasons many companies could not work efficiently BUT since then they have got into the excuses habit and customer service has gone out the window, and I am sick to death of AL generated customer service replies which basically just repeat the problem you have asked, and never resolve anything, I want to speak to a real human!!!

Silvertwigs

Oh yes, it’s just exasperating isn’t it, what has gone wrong with this country, world, society etc?

I’m a volunteer at a local theatre and also do the garden there. The car park is operated by an ANRP parking system but I cannot always get into the building to validate my car. So I get a ticket, £60 or £100 if left for 14 days, of course I always appeal them (4 atm!) and some have been reduced to £20 which I pay straight away. I’ve now received a 2nd reminder for one of them that I’ve already paid! The company is Civil Enforcement Ltd, based in Liverpool. They have the wrong telephone number on their web site and there is no other way of getting through to them unless you make a complaint, of which I’ve done, but their only answer is to send letters threatening debt collectors! I’ve consulted my MP as I’m actually really stressed.

I would look for another volunteering post, couldn’t be doing with all that parking stress!! Why can’t the company offer you a parking pass?

After waiting to be connected to my local council for a while, and hearing, a number of times, the reminder that they can be contacted online, I did just that. I had a query regarding council tax. I received a reply stating that they aimed to reply within 90 days! This is shocking service. In the event, I tried calling again, and luckily didn’t have to wait too long. I finally received a reply to my original email. It arrived more than the 90 days quoted. Very poor service.
Another difficulty that I have is when calls to companies are answered by people from another country who talk very quickly with a strong accent. It’s not their fault, but why don’t bosses realise that this can make communication very difficult, even almost impossible sometimes.

Evri
They must be the worst delivery company in the country. Parcels stuck in transit for over a month , try to contact you get a bot. No response from a person. Where we live people are always looking for parcels that have been mis delivered or asking who to contact when parcels are still in transit after several weeks. I refuse to buy online from companies who use them.

AmberGran

I don't think many people actually understand customer service anymore.

We've just had BT in to upgrade to full fibre broadband. Sounded reasonable when we talked to them back in May. 2 weeks ago their contractor came to put the new cable in. Last week their engineer arrived to connect the cable to our network. It didn't work. Then we were told the contractors couldn't come back for over a week to fix the cable. They've sorted out a mini network for us so we do have some internet now but it's a bit limited. They are due back next week to complete it.

I find it difficult to understand that they can come here and disrupt an existing system then leave it for a few weeks before fixing it. For me good customer care would be 'Wow - we got it wrong but we'll be back tomorrow to fix it'.

I don't care that they got it wrong. Bad stuff happens some times. I do care that the best they can do is create another appointment when it is convenient to them to come back and fix it. It's not BT, it's their contractor, over whom BT have no authority at all apparently.

Not even much point in moving from BT - they are pretty good a lot of the time and no one else is consistently any better.

Exactly the same thing happened to us a couple of months ago! It was BT who suggested we upgrade and we agreed to it. They switched off our broadband and the engineer then came round for 10 mins and said he couldn't do the job that day. It affected everything - TV's included and they gave us a temporary router which didn't work very well. It got sorted eventually once they sent an engineer who knew what he was doing but it was an absolute pain!

My daughter in law was only saying this the other day, our son bought an electric car at the beginning of the year, the air con stopped working in June and they were kept waiting two weeks before it could be looked at, it is still under warranty. Now it has gone again last week and the initial offer was to look at it on August 26th, my DIL spoke to the person who sold it to them and he has brought the date forward to August 4th. Our son is a service engineer and does a lot of mileage every day, it is very uncomfortable for him in this hot weather without air con. The company they are dealing with has always serviced our car and they used to come and pick it up and return it, all that stopped a couple of years ago.

Dealing with any sort of company is a nightmare today. Doom loop questionnaires, chatbots and five minute recorded menus seem deliberately concocted to keep the paying customer away from a human being and real assistance. And, when you speak to a human, they are not always in the country and understandable or competent to deal with issues.

This week alone, Royal Mail have lost a parcel and we have been told by Virgin/Plusnet that our house is incapable of having broadband when we have had and been using it since its inception.

We changed bank to First Direct on the basis of its excellent customer service reviews and we haven’t had a problem yet.

Sadly that's the way things are going. It's frustrating and such a waste of time. I rang EE last week. The young woman I eventually spoke to asked me to hang on while she got the info I needed. She was gone for ages ( long enough to make and drink a cup of coffee)

Having worked in a call centre I know there are people who take their job seriously and those who delight in keeping the callers hanging on and on and on.

Companies need to realise that once clients find a company that has excellent customer service they will stick with it. Octopus Energy is a good example.

Octopus was useless when we were transferring over to them.

I would happily have transferred out again but trying to go backwards was even more difficult!

Just saying.

Reading down these and my experiences... Customer Services?? not existent..