The increasing incompetence of companies

[Haggisman]

Maybe I'm just getting less tolerant of dealing with other people's ****-ups as I get older, but I've noticed an increasing trend of supposedly reputable companies being downright useless and expecting me as a customer to just be accepting of that.

I've had Virgin refuse to honour their offer for unlimited data on your mobile phone if the internet goes down due to a fault on their end, despite sending them a link to the page on their website which explicitly states they will do so (eventually resolved after an hour on the phone and having to escalate it).

I've had Oculus support tell me they couldn't help with warranty as I didn't purchase from an authorised retailer - OcUK, even though they feature OcUK as an authorised retailer on their site.

I've had numerous instances of Hermes saying they tried to deliver and no-one was in (nonsense), resulting in orders being returned/delayed by several days.

Last week I had to deal with Sky who were charging me extra for HD every month despite me re-negotiating my contract in July and the offer confirmation email I received not mentioning anything about it, and then refusing to honour the original agreement (since resolved after phone call #3 and speaking to someone else).

Now I've had my online Morrison's order just not turn up, no communication from them at all, spoke to them yesterday where they couldn't give me any information, but promising a call back (which of course never materialised), and first thing this morning received a refund out of the blue, no explanation, apology or anything.

Also reading the Royal Mail thread on here where another forum member is having a similar experience.

While this obviously isn't a new thing, it does seem to have become a lot more prevalent in the last 3-4 years, to the point I now expect to have a fight on my hands when something goes wrong and I'm pleasantly surprised when actually I have a positive experience with a company.

I get that things go wrong, and have no problem with that - my issue is that whereas previously companies would try to sort things out properly and come to a solution which kept everyone happy, now they just try to brush you off as if it never happened.

Is this something I'm just imagining, or have others noticed the same?

 

[Haggisman]

Company: ‘sorry covid init’ …..

everyone else: …..

Sounds about right. Even though the issues have been present since before covid, and aren't anything to do with a shortage of staff/goods, it's a convenient catch-all excuse.

Maybe I'll start knocking 10% off every bill I pay and item I buy, because covid...

 

[Haggisman]

If companies could get away with it there’d be no CS staff at all, they’re a cost, often a big one and don’t really drive new business. Accountants hate them.

I don't know, e.g. a lot of people recommend John Lewis because of their aftersales care & warranty support, my PC parts almost exclusively come from OcUK because I've always found their customer service great, and I'm looking at new monitors (LG 38GN950 or Alienware AW3821DW) and several recommendations are for the Alienware over the LG because of the Dell support/warranty, even though the LG is arguably the better product.

If your CS stands out over the competition, then that's going to bring in customers who otherwise would have gone elsewhere. The inverse is also true, there are a few companies I will never give another penny to, no matter how good their product is, because of the terrible CS I've experienced when dealing with them.

Starting to think I've maybe gained through a company's incompetence.

Had an electric smart meter installed a few weeks back. Didn't want one, but my red key thing is knackered.

Anyway, bloke comes round and installs the thing. I do my bit, then try to top up, but it doesn't work. The guy on the phone says 'Oh, we sent you the wrong number, let me fix it'. Then my home display (IHD) shows credit. Great.

Come midnight, the IHD ceases receiving information. No credit, no values no figures, nothing. Thing is, power consumption deducts from your credit in real time, and when the guy did his fix, it stopped deducted.

Fairly confident I would have exhausted all my credit + emergency by now...

Don't get me started on utility companies, they are by far the worst! I had to start invoicing NPower for my wasted time before they actually sorted my bill out, and I'm still waiting for a final bill from Together Energy after leaving them in April 2019...

 

[Haggisman]

I felt the need to record my phone call with Virgin recently as I was so fed up with being told one thing on the phone and then something completely different appearing on the bill. They also put me on hold for about 30mins when they checked something which the cynic in me believes was to get me to go away but they just blamed covid.

If an agreement is made on the phone that should be the end of it, you shouldn't have to keep calling back to get what you were promised.

Sounds exactly like my discussion with Sky. Fortunately the person I spoke to on Live Chat was able to sort out my offers (in fact it's now actually £2/month less than it was before), but I've taken a copy and screenshots of the whole conversation for when they invariably **** it up yet again.

The next step will be cancelling my contract, since the only way they can prove I agreed to a new minimum term will be by providing the recording of the phonecall, which will prove that they shouldn't have been charging me the extra in the first place. I really don't understand why we need to waste everyone's time playing the game (well... the cynic in me thinks it's because 90% of people will give up at the first hurdle, resulting in easy extra ££ for the company by basically scamming people).

I remember the old phrase "the customer is always right". Many in business don't seem to see the bigger picture. That even if you're not sure if you're right or wrong you should give the benefit of doubt to the customer.

See, I don't agree with this 100%. There are plenty of customers who will shout and scream and kick up a fuss over nothing. "The customer is always right" gives "Karen" an excuse to treat employees of the company like **** and expect the moon on a stick.

Problems happen, that's fine, but fix it afterwards - take ownership of the issue, keep me updated and at least honour the contract you've made, don't promise ABC, then deliver A and charge me for ABC & D and tell me there's nothing you can do about it.

 

[Haggisman]

There is no customer loyalty benefit any more. I expect to switch my business around constantly. Maybe that's what's driven this. Ultimately what matters most to most people is price.

I guess it's a self-fulfilling cycle. There's no benefit to customer loyalty, so customers shop around, which means companies don't see any reason to maintain customer loyalty, making customers more likely to shop around... and repeat.

 

[Haggisman]

Here’s an idea why not flip it on its head? How many people have taken the time to congratulate a company who have provided good service?

Every time (the number of which I can count on 1 hand...).

More importantly, I also reward them in a more tangible way by continuing to give them my business.

My rant isn't so much about individuals at these companies, more that the processes they have to follow don't seem to be set up to handle anything other than "business as usual", anything outside that and it all falls apart. I guess the issue here is that everything is so siloed these days that the CS staff have absolutely no disgression or leeway to deal with an unexpected situation

 

[Haggisman]

Some good rants that are all to familiar..

Out of interest, I just checked the Oculus website, and oddly, 'find a retailer' for a Rift S has OCUK listed, but 'find a retailer' for a Quest 2 does not show OCUK.. Weird..

Yes, I noticed this as well, hence why I didn't push it too hard with Oculus, but when I raised the warranty request with OcUK (who incidentally were fantastic and issued an RMA within 10 mins of me posting in the CS forum), I queried it and was told they definitely were and had a direct account with Oculus!

The first generation that weren’t educated, just taught to pass tests at school and university are now employed in team leader/junior management roles and it’s going as well as expected.

Exactly the reason I stopped teaching, and all part of the govt.'s genius policy to increase the number of people going to university (and general level of education). A great idea in theory, but implemented as to be expected by our incompetent leaders (I guess if everyone else is just as **** it makes them look better in comparison ).

 

[Haggisman]

Someone explained this to me with a jelly mould. In the old days, you had a jelly mould that held 500ml of jelly liquid and had a 2 litre jug of liquid. So the exam contained only a quarter of areas covered. Now this jug is 500ml. Plus get told exactly what the questions are. Most of the lessons are padded out too.

No wonder exam grades are increasing. Go back to 2-3 exam papers after two years and don’t tell students what the questions are. So makes students to do proper revision instead of reading a couple of sheets over and over again and practice responding to answers.


I have asked questions to people who got A in GCSE and/or A level History and they don’t know the answer! As they only were taught very limited history. My GCSE in History which I took in 1997. All I did was 1919-39. How can anyone class a qualification in history covering just 20 years, is a mystery.

To be fair, compressing 20 years worth of events into 2 years worth of learning is hard enough, never mind the 5,000 odd years of recorded human history! For such a broad subject, at GCSE or A Level it's more of a general overview - you're not really going to get a chance to specialise until college/university. If you asked an expert in Ancient Greece some obscure facts about WW1 they're unlikely to have an answer, conversely, ask a WW1 expert something about Ancient Greece and they'll look at you like you're mad, even though both fall under the blanket term "history". It's like asking an "IT professional" the correct way to deploy group policy to a corporate domain. If that "IT professional" is an infrastructure and domain engineer, then of course they will be able to answer you, if they're a web developer then they probably won't have a clue!

What things like GCSE/A-Level history should teach is the basic fact finding skills - where/how to research, how to verify the accuracy & authenticity of historical accounts etc. but that's far harder to a) teach, and b) assess, so the focus of both learning and exams is memorising dates and events, which is basically useless other than as a test of memory.

 

[Haggisman]

most companies completely stopped customer service during covid
you couldn't even complain to most supermarkets

Yup, I couldn't even get through to my local morrisons to ask them to approve my self checkout when I'd been sat there waiting for 10 minutes!

 

[Haggisman]

Seems to be getting worse. So far this month:

LG sent an engineer to fix my washing machine (control panel isn't working properly). Didn't send him with any parts, so he basically looked at the machine, confirmed what the photo I sent to them when logging the ticket showed, and left again without fixing it. Supposed to be coming back today and hopefully will actually fix it, but not holding my breath.

Trains cancelled Saturday (both morning and afternoon)
Trains cancelled Sunday morning

To be honest, these days it's more of a surprise when the trains do actually run (and actually being on time is a once-a-month occurrence)

Expecting a parcel today, but UPS tracking is showing: "Due to operating conditions, your package may be delayed." (i.e. "we done ****** up")

Now Morrisons are advising I have a substitution in my shopping - basically the exact same item, but half the size for exactly the same price. Maybe the person doing the substitution could have used their brain and realised if I wanted to pay double the amount for the exact same thing I would have order my shopping from Waitrose? Why not instead substitute it for a like-for-like item (which I can see they have in stock). I fully understand that items go out of stock, and sometimes need to be swapped out, but my god use some ******* common sense when doing it?!

AARRGH /rant

 

[Haggisman]

It doesn't seem noticeably worse to me. Service/competence has always been bad from some companies. I'd say your point of comparison (3-4yrs ago) was hardly a pinnacle.

It's always been bad from some companies, but I've definitely noticed a marked decline more recently to the point that these days I'm genuinely surprised when I receive good (or even just acceptable!) service.

I think @b0rn2sk8 hit the nail on the head in that a lot of companies realised they were able to get away with it under the guise of "covid", and so why bother?

 

[Haggisman]

This is why I escaped Brum 45 yrs ago. I can not imagine what it is like today.

Hmm, that's a possibility I hadn't considered actually. So all of these national (and in some cases multi-national) companies are conspiring together to provide poor service to anyone with a Birmingham postcode, whilst maintaining high quality provision for the rest of country/world?

Makes sense I guess!

 

[Haggisman]

No one cares about reviews for the large companies.

Most of then all have awful feedback on all the review sites anyway now.

Even the companies don't care about the feedback, I left a review for the company about the washing machine repair, saying the engineers were great, but stop wasting everyone's time by sending them out with no parts, as it took 3 weeks for it to actually get fixed, and they responded saying they were glad I had a positive experience

 

[Haggisman]

Hermes? Reputable?

I did say "supposedly"

And yes, likewise, I won't buy from anywhere who uses Hermes/Evri, and if they don't say who they ship with and it turns out to be them, I will cancel the order when I receive the shipping notification.

The site I get our cat food from has just switched from DPD to Evri as one of their couriers (why the **** would you do that?!), meaning the only other option is Yodel...

 

[Haggisman]

Money (saving).

In theory - I wonder how many deliveries (and customers) they have to lose to break even?

Also, if the customer is choosing which service they want, and paying for it, then why does it matter?

 

[Haggisman]

I used Hermes (Evri) and Royal Mail when I owned my business - along with FedEx, DPD and DHL.
I collated data relating to late deliveries, missing parcels, damage etc so I could go back to account managers for compensation - and believe it or not, they're all as bad as each other.

The difference in loss / damage rates between even the budget carriers and premium bunch was so small it was statistically insignificant.
Late deliveries were a Royal Mail special feature; the rest were usually on time, but Royal Mail would frequently have the odd parcel turn up 4 weeks later (and that's within the UK).

I left Yodel out of the above list - they were consistently awful and I had so many issues with just getting things collected that they were sacked off within weeks. The small amount of data I did collect for their time was also terrible in terms of loss / late deliveries / damage.

That's surprising - although I guess it's more down to the local hub/driver, so while it might average out for a sender, the receiver will have significantly different results depending on which company is used.

As expected, my cat food order from last week has not yet arrived, despite being due on the 29th... Time to find a new supplier

 

[Haggisman]

Been having fun with Natwest recently. Tried to open an account for my 11 year old son - need to visit a branch with his birth certificate, problem is, there is no counter service on Saturdays and unsurprisingly he's supposed to be at school during the week...

Fine - we put it on hold till the summer holidays, went into the branch on a day I had booked off, provided the necessary documentation, all good (or so we thought).

2 weeks later and we haven't heard anything back, no card, confirmation etc. Give them a ring: "oh, we've lost the copy of the documents, you'll have to come in and provide them again, or you can post them to us".

You've literally just told me you've lost the copies of documents which were provided to you in branch, and you want us to POST you the originals? **** off - like I have any confidence in your ability to not lose those as well? Either that or take an afternoon off work and pay for a train into town purely to provide a document I've already provided?

Raised a formal complaint (not expecting anything to come of it - just being a Karen for the sake of being a **** really), and heard nothing back after almost 3 weeks.

So... spec me a decent bank who also do kids accounts I guess?

 

[Haggisman]

Open a Starling Bank kids account?

Looks like that's very similar to GoHenry which we had before, but got fed up paying a monthly fee when he wasn't using it enough to justify.

Will take a look at the Lloyds/RBS options, seems Halifax need you to have a current with them already, but can't see that restriction on the others.

 

[Haggisman]

Great one today.

Used the Dartford Crossing on Sunday, with everything going on at home I completely forgot to pay the charge until this morning - fair enough, my bad, entirely my fault.

Log in to the system to see if there's the off chance I can still get away with making the payment.
Enter my reg. no., system finds the car and shows 2 outstanding crossings - excellent, maybe it's OK.
I follow through the process, explicitly say "No" to an option which asks if I want to add any credit for additional crossings, and pay the outstanding £5. Job done.

Except it's not. I don't get any email receipt, so I sign back in using the payment reference to check if it's gone through OK, and "Available credit: £5, no crossings have been allocated to this payment"

wtf

I've since called them multiple times and I'm getting a completely different answer every single time, everything from "it has been allocated to the crossings and here's a different payment reference" to "there are 2x £70 PCNs on the way and there is no way to get a refund at all"

How difficult is it to get a straight answer?! Needless to say I'm a bit a) ****** off (partially at myself) and b) stressed about the ~£250 bill potentially on the way for making the payment less than 36 hrs late (lease car, so probably a £50 admin charge for each PCN as well).

Yes, completely my fault for not paying on time, but what a joke of a response

 

[Haggisman]

Sounds like grounds for reasonable dispute if you have evidence of payment and calls to them. If you have family health problems that should add to the dispute, i'm guessing with this point however. The fine should be allocated to you, the driver, not the lease company, but it's been a long time since i read up on this. The fine is half the amount if paid within 14 days also, but disputing the fine may remove the "offer" of half payment.

Purely bullying tactics, and last time i used the bridge it was manned years ago.

I'm not going to dispute it, I was fully in the wrong for not paying in time, as the timescale was clearly advertised on all the signs (although I do think 24 hours is unnecessarily short, e.g. the CAZ here in Birmingham gives you a week). My problem is more the completely wrong information on the online system, and the fact none of the call centre staff seem to have a clue


The fine will go to the lease company as they are the registered keeper of the vehicle, so no luck there, even if I did dispute it, I'd still have to pay their admin fees