Reading Arts
Posted: Thu 10 February, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services 9 Comments »In direct juxtaposition to the tossers at B&Q, I’m utterly impressed with the service from Reading Arts’ ticket booking.
On Tuesday I ordered two tickets to see Derren Brown‘s new show at Reading Hexagon. Their website was a bit shonky and wouldn’t accept Switch Maestro cards, so I called up the box-office instead. No problem, and yes, the website’s a bit old, but we’re working on a new version that should be live in a couple of months – no idea why it won’t accept switch, but the new one will. Fair enough – at least the booking staff know there are some problems, and they’ve got the information to hand to keep the customer happy and informed.
The tickets arrived in the post yesterday. Probably 12-18 hours after I’d ordered them. OK, they’d only got to be sent from Reading to Bracknell, but that’s not overly relevant. It was a nice efficient process, and yes, I’m impressed.
B&Q – still going
Posted: Thu 10 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, General 2 Comments »And in direct contrast I also got an email last night from B&Q’s customer services saying “Thanks for your comments, we’ve forwarded them on to someone who’ll talk to you soon”. Impressive – only three days between sending the email and receiving a response.
I despair.
B&Q – Finale(ish)
Posted: Wed 9 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, Weirdness 5 Comments »I’ve just cancelled the order with B&Q. Now we just have to fight to get the wrongly-delivered stuff removed before we can get a refund on it. The tossers.
Never again will I shop using the online B&Q site. It’s crap. The latest chapter in the epic has involved dealing with a person in their customer services team – one who was apparently offended at the word “effing” (I got told not to swear at her – she hasn’t seen this site, obv.) and who tried to say the entire farce was my/our fault for ordering the wrong items.
Speaking slowly, I explained that we’d used the website, where order numbers weren’t entered by the customer. If the twunting fridgelickers couldn’t get the right numbers into their website, how was that our problem? The offer to re-do the order (“I’ll put in the correct code this time for you” – patronising shitehawk) and still not get it delivered ’til mid-March was, shall we say, received unenthusiastically by myself.
So now we’re back to square one, and need to order 2 x 3m worktops. I wonder what Homebase can do to fuck it all up?
B&Q – the Complaint Letter
Posted: Mon 7 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, D4D™ 4 Comments »Following on from the B&Q saga, this email has just been sent to their customer services…
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am emailing you because I am utterly furious about the incompetent way our order has been handled by B&Q. At the end of December we placed an order via your website for 2x3000mm Stardust black worktops and 2x worktop edges. Personally, I wouldn’t have thought that this was a complicated order, but when it comes to B&Q, I’m obviously grossly overestimating their capabilities.
We first received the order at the start of January. This managed to consist of 1x3000mm Worktop – in Blue – and 1x1000mm wall unit carcase, 1x800mm wall unit carcase, and 4x 500mm cherry wood finish doors. In short, epically, spectacularly wrong.
We organised a re-delivery, and for the delivery company to remove the incorrect items. This time they turned up with two worktops. Great. Except they’re Red Marble finish. And we got a metal hanging rack as well.
For a third time we organised a re-delivery, and an uplift of the incorrect stuff. My partner checked it before it came off the lorry, and this time we had 2x 3000mm worktops. In Grey. We didn’t even take the worktops off the delivery truck. As for the items that were delivered incorrectly last time? Your wonderful delivery service hadn’t managed to detail that there was anything to come back, so they didn’t take anything.
To date we’ve now had three deliveries, none of which have been correct. We’re still waiting for the correct worktops, and the worktop edging. We’ve still got two Red Marble worktops we don’t want, and haven’t ordered, as well as a wall carcase we don’t want and didn’t order, and a metal hanging rack we don’t want and didn’t order.
Is it too much to ask that B&Q manage to sort out this delivery immediately? I can’t believe that this is how B&Q normally operate – otherwise you must be losing hundred of thousands of pounds per year delivering unordered items to people.
I would also like to point out that I’ve just risked serious damage to myself by looking at your website and nearly busting a gut laughing at your statement “Supporting our employees, delighting our customers“. “Committed to great service” is also – in our case – an outright lie.
I would like to be given a call today (Monday 7th February) on 07xxx xxxxxx to tell me what B&Q intend to do to rectify this utter farce. So far it has cost my partner and I 8 hours off work to be present for deliveries, and god only knows how much time in phone calls, emails, and trying to fight our way through the most obstructive AVR phone system known to man.
At this precise moment, I intend to never shop with B&Q again, and would heartily advise anyone else thinking of doing so to go to Dodgy Bob’s DIY Warehowse instead of using B&Q’s “services”.
I hope we can bring this matter to a swift and satisfactory conclusion, and I look forward to receiving your call.
Sincerely
Lyle.
B&Q – Tossers
Posted: Fri 4 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, Weirdness 3 Comments »This time, the stuff didn’t even come off the lorry. The worktops were light grey with black flecks, instead of the expected black with grey flecks. You have to wonder at the epic degrees of twuntdom necessary to fuck up an order to this level, don’t you?
The worktops from the last ballsed-up delivery are still in the house too – the arsewipe bureaucrat tossnerds hadn’t even managed to tell the delivery company that they were supposed to be collecting anything.
Snotty letters will be getting written this weekend, I suspect. Copies will be placed on d4d™ as and when they’re written, which pay provide some level of amusement out of the entire farce process.
B&Q – The Tale Continues
Posted: Fri 4 February, 2005 Filed under: B&Q, Customer Services, Weirdness 2 Comments »Over the last month, we’ve had endless hassles with B&Q. The initial order was remarkably simple. Two black(ish) three-meter-length worktops, and two laminate worktop ends. You wouldn’t think it was rocket-science, would you?
In the first order, they sent one blue worktop, two kitchen wall-units (1x1000mm and 1x800mm) and four 500mm cherrywood kitchen doors. You’ll note, the doors weren’t even going to match up with the wall units that we received but hadn’t ordered.
In the second one, they managed to deliver two worktops (and take away most of the problem delivery, except for one of the wall units) but also put in a metal vegetable rack, and something that now escapes me. And the worktops were a very nasty reddy-marble finish. Nowhere even in the vicinity of “black”. They were supposed to deliver “in the afternoon“, which translated to 11.30am.
Today is the third attempt. They’re supposed to be delivering in the afternoon, and give Herself 30 minutes notice so that she can get home from work to check the delivery.
So why have they called at 9.45am to say “we’re at the house – where are you?” ? Something makes me think there’s no fucking chance the delivery’s going to be right this time either. I just hope the blood’s been wiped off the street by the time I get home this evening…
Council Tax Twuntdom – The Response
Posted: Tue 1 February, 2005 Filed under: Customer Services, Weirdness 1 Comment »Well, colour me (slightly) impressed. I’ve had a response from the council already. I quote it in it’s entirety… (and without changing the way it was written)
GOOD MORNING
TO CLARIFY THE SITUATION.
YOUR COUNCIL TAX ACCOUNT IS IN CREDIT OF £38.23, I HAVE TODAY REQUESTED THAT A REFUND CHEQUE IS ISSUED TO YOU, THIS YOU WILL RECEIVE IN THE NEXT 10 DAYS
THANK YOU
xxx (Name removed by me – fair’s fair)
So there we go – sorted. Well, questions remain unanswered about why they do the form in such a twunty way in the first place, but at least it’s an answer.