Fed up of poor service from companies.

Well nearly two months after they started the full fibre upgrade it is fixed. We gave up trying to find out what was happening as we had some network connection and it just wasn't worth the effort.

Today an OpenReach van showed up at the end of our drive. I wasn't sure if they were here to see us or our neighbour who is also having an upgrade done. The engineer asked us what had happened with ours so we explained. A little while later he came back, tested out the cable, plugged it all in and it worked. We're fully back online. He didn't come to fix ours but he did it anyway and he actually sounded like he knew what he was doing and wanted to help. Now that was customer service.

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.

You should report them to BBC Watchdog because they investigate, name and shame them. Usually get refunds when people are ripped off. They're brilliant.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2DQwStWpWjfYJQprQFN70TS/watchdog-on-the-one-show

Post Office - every time I send something to Nottingham, it seems to attract a steal me or lose me label. Empty envelope arrived there with a note saying it was unsecured and to check content. Clearly the sellotape had been cut.
To my local sorting office who told me to contact theirs who told me to contact Belfast - who don't take calls or answer letters. Fill in a claim form but no response whatever.

Got a leak in my pressure washer, ordered a set of washers (they do not do just one comes in a pack of six) Despite being roughly the right circumference it was not thick enough so it did not work. Yes, the dreaded, 1 for spares, 2 or sales.... and a runaround and back to the start finally called sales (a good ploy to actually get a person) and it took 3 weeks to get an email asking about the problem, repeat, then surprise surprise a different set that you could not order appeared in 2 days.

Booking a Warner's holiday - you can book your activities 8 weeks - nope - 6 in and nothing; three different phone numbers just ringing out; 4th number said call back tomorrow; central HQ had lots of "press one for..." and an option for callback - finally - told me that they will be online 2 weeks before, but if not

But the best one - but thanks to a brilliant main operator it took only 5 calls to get a leave a message option - trying to clarify an issue with a forthcoming operation, it took me five calls getting no answer or a phone message telling me the recipient was on holiday. Not happy that the response I finally got was "we know better than you"

Poor service - or any service at all?

An electrician who couldn't be bothered to answer my messages and a minor avalanche of mail about once every 12 days, and don't get me started about trying to get any common sense out of a Chatbot!

I have a Tower air fryer oven, the second I’ve bought, as I wore out the previous excellent one.
The new one was fine for few weeks, then suddenly a very strong smell of burning plastic.
I instantly turned off , unplugged. It’s too long winded to continue, to be brief they wanted photos of sticker underneath. Video of it burning,receipt, dates of everything. I’m unable to lift it, hold it ,video underneath etc. Do I have to burn my house down, whilst videoing,it to prove their product is substandard?

And no different here in Canada. I have thought that it must come from most of we Boomers retiring and the new workers simply don't get the training and the companies don't want to spend the money on either hiring enough people or taking the time to train and SUPERVISE. So frustrating; I do online as much as possible and rarely shop in store or find a local business that is invested in keeping their business alive.

Royal Mail! Grr!

If anything I post or receive takes longer than it should (next working day for 1st class, 3 working days for 2nd class) I go to the Royal Mail website and claim compensation (usually receive eight 1st class stamps, so it's worth doing).

However, I have been left fuming by a recent item I posted. It was sent by 48 hour tracked delivery as it was important. The recipient received an email saying it had been delivered, along with a photo of the front door where it had been left, which was not their front door! We eventually tracked it down to a house in the next street, so the recipient was able to go and collect it.

I went onto the Royal Mail website, expecting to be able to at least get a refund of the postage cost, as they had failed to deliver to the correct address, but I was advised that they are not obliged to compensate for incorrect delivery! I kid you not! So if we had not found the item we could have claimed compensation for it going missing, but because we found it and, in effect, delivered it ourselves, no compensation is due.

No. 76ers.

The posts about problems and worsening Customer Service are probably due to a process called Enshittification.

See below

Enshittification (also known as platform decay) is the gradual degradation of an online product or service over time. It is driven by corporate incentives to maximize short-term profits for shareholders at the expense of users.The term was coined in 2022 by the tech writer Cory Doctorow. It gained massive popularity, earning "Word of the Year" titles from the American Dialect Society and Australia's Macquarie Dictionary.

The 3 Stages of DecayAccording to Doctorow's theory, platforms systematically rot through three predictable stages:

Good to Users: Platforms initially offer high-quality, subsidized, or free services to attract and lock in a massive user base.

Abuse Users for Businesses: Once users are locked in by high switching costs, the platform pivots to favor business customers (advertisers or merchants) to build dependence.

Abuse Everyone for Shareholders: Finally, the platform squeezes both users and business customers to claw back all value, pocketing the profits for themselves and leaving behind a hollow, frustrating experience.

Real-World Examples
Google Search: Results have shifted from showing purely relevant information to prioritizing sponsored links, massive ad blocks, and unhelpful AI-generated content summaries.Amazon: Originally won over consumers with cheap products and fast delivery. Now, product searches are flooded with irrelevant, cheap, or sponsored items from merchants paying high fees to be seen.

Social Media (Facebook/X/TikTok): Feeds that used to show updates from friends and chosen creators are now jammed with ads, algorithmically pushed content, and paid "reach.

Such is life folks.