(Good) Customer Service

Yesterday, I let Colin talk of his experiences with bad customer service and if you haven't read his blog yet, you can do so here (Lack of) Customer Service. So I thought today I would chat about good customer service. Which is something I am very passionate about. Before I start, I just want to say that I agree with everything he is saying in his blog about how large companies often forget the very basics. It is no secret that I work for a large multi national company with the biggest DIY market share in the UK and much of Europe. Now people will argue that we have forgot the little guy and customer service is not important. In fact a quick look at the B&Q twitter feed will tell you that all we seem to do is dealing with problems or giving bad service across our stores. As consumers, we expect good service all of the time and rightly so. But I often feel that we don't shout enough about good service as individuals enough. If somebody is really nice to us in a shop or a store, we might tell one or 2 of our friends but rarely write a letter or take to twitter to tell the company.

I have recently started on the showrooms department in my store and this is an area that as a customer you would expect the best kind of service, especially if you are spending 5 or 6 thousand pound on a kitchen. I don't work in a  massive store so naturally we don't have all the stock of everything we sell and a lot of items have to come from our suppliers or from our large fulfilment centre. So my job often involves negotiating earlier delivery times for bits of customers kitchens. Naturally at this time of year they want it before Christmas, but with a few things we haven't had enough stock etc. In one case, my colleague drove around the whole of the region picking up bits of stock for various customers so we could get it to them in time because the supplier or fulfilment centre had not got them to our store on time for delivery. There is another colleague who works tirelessly in her office all day often correcting everyone elses mistakes so nothing does go wrong with a customer's order then she will coach that person on what to do right next time. Her job role tells her to escalate it to a manager, but then it wouldn't get done in time anyway and there would be far more issues. Me, well it has just gone 6 o'clock and I "finished" work an hour ago after not even getting chance to have a lunch break properly because I was that busy. Also, I have just got off my mobile phone to a customer and a colleague in store so they could arrange another delivery for the customers order.

I think what frustrates me personally is that from the outside it seems very easy to criticise big companies but from the other side I know there are individuals like myself and many other of my colleagues who do their utmost every single day to give the best customer service every day. I am not saying there are not people who could not care a less because there are people like that in every organisation unfortunately. Or even that  we don't get things wrong because we are only human at the end of the day. But to me and many people in similar roles such as mine the little guy is still important because that little guy is me, its you, its our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers. it is all of us.

   

(Lack of) Customer Service

Today, the blog is from my happy go lucky friend, Colin...

My blog for Stewart today is formed all around customer service, namely from two pretty large companies in the UK - one of them is EE (the people who employ Kevin Bacon to do ridiculous adverts), and Santander (who employ wealthy athletes such as Jessica Hill-Ennis and Lewis Hamilton to sell their already huge product).

I understand that large companies are primarily there to make money in order to keep their shareholders, yet I am disappointed and disheartened at how low these companies appear to value customer service. We'll start with EE.

EE boast to be the largest mobile phone company in the UK, this I believe is true after T-Mobile and Orange merged their UK operations. They are also the first company to bring 4G into the UK. With access to smartphones and our desire to Facebook / Tweet / Surf the internet, speed is everything. Imagine my surprise when I was unable to get 4G access, and struggled with 3G access in both Coventry and Birmingham - both 4G cities (Birmingham being one of the cities that first got 4G). I tweet and surf the internet a fair bit and this was a little frustrating. For the avoidance of any doubt, this was not a momentary glitch, but lasted for several hours! Couple in the fact that I pay around £46 a month for the privilege of such service I was / am understandably a bit disgruntled.

Social Media (particularly Twitter) is a very powerful tool in terms of communication. It allows individuals to communicate with large national and multi-national companies, and pretty much anyone can see a Tweet, thanks to the power of re-tweeting, quoting and (if you really want to get your message across), by "Promoting" the tweet. With this in mind, you'd think that large companies would do all they can to minimise any negative PR showing up on Social Networks. Some companies (such as Northern Rail, PaddyPower, and London Midland) are very good at this - they have a large customer base and work hard to diffuse any complaint - occassionally with humour, but always with information and handy advice.

Not EE. I've complained to EE via Twitter a few times over the past couple of weeks, and their response has been nothing short of disappointing. All they do is say that they look in my account, and cannot find any issues. Fair enough.
So, why do they not look at #EE on Twitter, to see what other customers think? In my brief searches, I have found people to have the same issues in relation to connecting to the internet via 4G (or 3G if you're not so lucky). However, I do not see EE trying very hard to rectify these issues, and I'm unaware as to whether they're working to upgrade their network. A little less money on Kevin Bacon, and a little more investment in the network would do nicely, because at the moment I, for one, won't be renewing my contract with them.

Now, onto Santander. I affectionately refer to them as the 'Wank Bank'. Primarily due to how awful they are.

I went into a Santander branch in a small Northern City and asked for them to transfer £100 from my account into another. Fairly basic. But the hitch was that I wanted it done the following day. No problem the very nice chap said and he assured me it was done.
Fast forward to today when I receive a text from the intended recipient, stating that the money had not gone into her account (despite the Santander man's assurances it would do!). This means I've got some digging to do, not ideal after coming off nightshift. A quick phonecall to Santander's complaints department, and another very helpful chap informed me that the cashier had not in fact sorted the transfer as requested, but instead set up a one monthly standing order. Not what I asked for.
Understandably, I'm not very happy at this. I appreciate that £100 may not seem like a lot of money, but it is to me. I asked the complaints gentleman if I could put a complaint in against the cashier, mainly due to incompetence. To my utter disbelief, I was told NO! Apparently, I've got to go into the store and make the claim to the branch. (How this can lead to an impartial investigation if necessary is beyond me...). Being tired and feeling slightly grim, I didn't bother arguing the toss about the point of an investigations department that didn't handle any complaints from the customer at the first point of contact. But I digress.

So, again, I took to Twitter to have a bit of a whinge about Santander. Within minutes, I had a reply stating that Santander "are absolute bastards". Good start. The same person also told me that Santander refused to give him Ombudsman details, and failed to follow up his complaint. Again, not great for the PR of what is one of the largest banks in the UK.
Santander, in their defence, have gotten back to me, but I am not expecting a positive outcome to this. Their customer service is appalling, in my view highlighted by incompetent staff and an investigation department which doesn't handle complaints!

All I (and many other's want) is decent customer service. We pay enough into these companies (be it via phone bills or by our wages going into our bank accounts), and the service we get is simply not good enough. Something has to change!

If you want to hear more from Colin, you can follow him on twitter here @C_S1991. He is also growing a poor attempt at a moustache for movember so feel free to sponsor him here http://uk.movember.com/mospace/7904309.