Customer Service

Recently I have had a couple of not very good customer service experiences.  The interesting part is the way that the two companies have dealt with the situation.

Staples, after a slow start, reacted very well.  I was contacted by the support department and then by the store manager.  I was then sent some vouchers (cash value £50) to spend in store, by way of a sorry.  That was not necessary, but was appreciated, and will encourage me to return to the store.

Domino’s, on the other hand, said (in essence) “Tough Luck”.  The drivers can’t be made to read the special instructions, so maybe you want to use a different store (company). 

To add insult to injury, their customer services will not respond to my emails and their twitter person will not tweet back to me.

Good move Dominos, just bury your head in the sand and the problems will go away.

Funnily enough I did actually place another order with Dominos, after all this started – so you would think they would be on best behaviour.  The driver rang the bell (no surprise there) and managed to drive off without giving me the drink I had ordered.  I called the store and a very nicely turned out young lady (I am assuming a manager/supervisor…) came round, knocked on the window (shock horror!!) and gave me the missing drink.  I pointed out that she was nicely turned out as the drivers are normally quite scruffy, so she stood out in comparison.  She managed to read the special delivery instructions, why can’t the others?

I am currently making a complaint to a company called Solus, that Aviva use to repair cars.  They returned our car in a dangerous state and seem to want to brush it under the carpet.  So far their manager has ignored my emails, lets see how Aviva and Chrysler deal with this.

I may be coming across as a bit of a “Victor Meldrew”  but I do believe that we get the service we deserve.   Walking away just means that we loose the utility of the company in question and they loose a client.  Is it not better all round if they buck their idea’s up and we carry on using them?

If one of my clients complains to me I see it as a warning shot across the bow.  How can I know if I am dropping the ball if no one tells me.  I go out every day and work to the best of my abilities.  Sometimes I will miss the target, sometimes my staff will not deliver to the standards that I expect.  Let me know and I will address it, walk away and we all loose.

The end of the Staples road

Had a phone call this morning from someone (name with held) who said he was the Manager at the Old Kent Road Branch of Staples.

Basically he apologised and acknowledged all that I have said.  He thinks he knows who the offending member of staff is and will be having a word. He also offered to send me some discount vouchers to tempt us back in the store.

Guess that is the end of this line.

I know this all seems like a pointless exercise but, in the long run, if more people start to do the same (complain), we may get better customer service.  Businesses cannot afford to annoy the customer (especially one that pays cash) as most people will just vote with their feet and not come back.   The way I see it I am doing businesses a favour. This way they get the chance to mend the ways of errant staff and win a customer back.

The next thing that needs addressing is the English inability to complain when they are wronged.  It does not need to be a shouting match.  As the Irish say “Speak quietly, and carry a big stick”.  The internet gives us all a tool to voice our annoyance and bring big companies to task. 

The next step from here would have been to look at site such as http://www.customerservicescoreboard.com/Staples or many of the other public forums to get it out there.  If they do not react then you can!  Any way….

Not much else to say on the subject really.  Shame it took so long, but we got there in the end.

Some progress with Staples

This morning I decided to give staples a call.
I spoke to a chap on their Store Customer Services number.  In keeping with my policy of not naming the innocent I shall not put his details here.
He said that he had responded to my initial comment.
And after some digging I found this.
From : customerservices@staples.co.uk    <<<  Generic Address Which is why I thought it was machine generated.
Dear Cosma,
Thank you for your email and for taking the time to fill in our customer service survey, your comments are appreciated and will be passed onto the store for their information and improvement.
Kind Regards
<Name Removed>
Customer Services
Staples UK Retail Ltd
Followed by a partial transcript of my responses.  My comments were missing.
Then I got a bog standard template email from generic addresses.  This came from the comments box on their website as follows….
From: Retail@online.staples.co.uk
Your comments have been passed to our Stores Customer Service
Team and you will receive a response shortly.
Please do not reply to this email.
Should you require any further assistance pleasec ontact us via our web
site,  http://www.staples.co.uk. Alternatively please email customersupport@online.staples.co.uk and one of our dedicated
representatives will be available Monday - Friday 9am - 5pm.
Kind regards
STAPLES  DIRECT
Why not follow us on Twitter for Customer Service offers and more! https://twitter.com/XXXXXXXX
The last line is quite funny.  Why would I want to follow your twitter account if I am annoyed?  Good thing I am not a Troll.  Oh, I love the typo.
Today I have received 2 emails From humans at last.  Progress?
From : customerservices@staples.co.uk <<< Generic Address
Dear Cosma,
Following on from our telephone conversation today, I have cut and pasted your blog and will pass it on to our complaints team.
Kind Regards
<Name Removed>
Customer Services
Staples UK Retail Ltd
****************************************************************************
From : customerservices@staples.co.uk <<< Generic Address
Dear Sir/Madam,
I was extremely sorry to receive your email regarding the poor service you received from our Old Kent Road store.
At Staples it is our aim to provide the best customer service at all times and it appears the store has fallen below the standards we set as a company.
I have passed your complaint to the District Manager, for investigation and resolution.
Please can you advise me of a contact number for you to enable our District Manager to contact you personally to apologise.
It is only by receiving feedback from customers like yourself that companies are made fully aware of any problems and are then in a position to resolve them. Thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to bring this matter to my attention.
If you have any further queries or this is not resolved to your satisfaction, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.
Kind Regards
<Name Removed>
So I have managed to speak to one person.  Got 1 Real email and 3 template emails.  All from generic addresses.  Lets now hope that I start to get some real people on the line.
Incidentally….
We needed some bits today.  Another £100 cash.  This time it went to a competitor.  I realise that £300 is peanuts on the grand scheme of things, but we are constantly buying bits and pieces and all the pennies soon make pounds!

Staples Customer Service

I like to think of myself as an easy customer.  I generally know what I want.  All the customer service representative has to do is convince me I have made the right choice and take my money.

Today I went to Staples to buy a networked hard drive for a client.

I knew the model I wanted and the price I wanted to pay.

We walked into the store (myself, my client and his assistant) and noticed, as soon as we walked through the door, one member of staff berating another.

We were ignored by everyone, but luckily we saw the item we wanted.  It happened to be at a good price so I took an empty box to the counter.  This is where the fun starts…

The person was still having a go at her colleague and we had some effort to get her attention.  She stomped over to us, snatched the empty box and stomped off, without saying where she was going.

The young lady that was being berated was left to smile at us, some what embarrassed.  I asked if the other lady was having a bad day and if there was a manager about.  Apparently that was the manager!!

The manager returned with the product and unceremoniously dumped it in front of me.  I opened the box to confirm what was in it.  I wanted to make sure that if I needed anything (cable, UK plug) we purchased it then and there.  The manager was not best impressed and scowled at me as I checked.  As luck would have it all the elements I needed were in the box

My client gave the manager the correct amount in cash (£199) only to be told that the unit was £239.  We pointed out that the shelf said it was £199.   After quizzing me if I was sure it was £199 she was not convinced and made a performance of stomping over the shelf to prove me wrong. She grabbed 1 of the 2 extra large shelf labels checking something on the back of the label and comparing it to the product.  Mumbling some comments under her breath (I did not catch what she said) she stomped back to the counter and made a “Managers Override”.  Displaying zero good grace.

We were all keen to get out of there, but my customer did want to explain to her how unimpressed he was with her attitude.  I also told her that were it not for the fact that we needed the device we would have walked out and purchased it elsewhere.  She acknowledged our comments, but did not apologise.  Clearly she did not really care.

In times like this, when jobs and customers are hard to come by, I would have thought that a shop would have been happy for a £199 sale, CASH (a card would have incurred processing fees), in less than 5 minutes with very little sales effort required.

I filled in Staples online questionnaire, they did not get a good rating, and will be interested if they reply.  

Whether I or my customer will be using Staples again remains to be seen.  I certainly will not be going back to the Old Kent Road store.

A bit of management level customer support training required I think.