Well I have finally decided to start a blog. There are many things I have opinions about and it's probably better that I rant about them somewhere, so a blog seems the best place. Recently I feel that customer services in general has taken a turn for the worse. I mean it's never the best thing when it comes to big companies (although some are better than others) but just recently I feel I have been doing people's jobs for them. For example: I recently subscribed to a magazine that had a promotional offer where they gave you a choice of free gifts. One of them happened to be season 4 of Supernatural. Since I didn't have it, and wanted to get it, I decided on this. I got the first magazine after a few weeks but no sign of the DVD. I phoned up and they said they had just received the DVDs and they were being packaged and sent so I should receive it within 10 days. A couple of weeks later I phoned again to find out where it was and they said they had run out before but now they had another batch in they would send it to me ASAP. Yet again a couple of weeks go by and nothing. I phone again and they assure me it will be sent out and I should receive it within 10 days. Now I happen to have worked in customer services so I feel I have a right to make comment on this issue. It is completely unacceptable for a company to expect a customer to wait this long for a product (even a free gift is covered by consumer law as it forms part of the original contract). Had I been the person who had received the call I would have had a DVD sent special delivery to keep the customer happy, especially as they have been promised several times before the item would turn up and it didn't. The company simply said that it would be 10 days. No surprises that it didn't turn up a couple of weeks later so I cancelled the magazine and sent an email stating why I was unhappy. So far I haven't received a reply. Companies don't seem to care about individual customers, it's only a problem if they lose many so sometimes you have no option to put up with crap service.
After graduating and before I started my PhD I had to pay the full council tax rate and as soon as I could I sent the council a copy of my exemption certificate. I continued to pay the full amount for a couple of months so I called to find out what was going on. They said they couldn't locate the certificate and I needed to send another. Already this has caused me to waste the little time that any PhD student has for themselves, because someone else can't do their job properly. I complied and eventually they reduced the rate to the correct amount. I requested a refund of the over-payments I had made after starting my PhD and they sent me a cheque. Now I pay the council tax from my own personal account via direct debit so they know the details of the payee. But they sent me a cheque with both mine and my girlfriend's names and as we don't have a joint back account I couldn't cash it. I called them back up and they said they would send another (that's all they said, they made no requests at the time). So from what should have been a simply matter of me sending them a form and them charging me the correct amount has already wasted a lot of my personal time. After several weeks and still no cheque I call AGAIN and they inform me that I need to send them the cheque back (yes the one that they could cancel and the one that I have ABSOLUTELY no way of cashing without going through the hassle of setting up a joint account) before they will issue me another. Now why the f**k didn't they tell me that the first time I called about the cheque and save me the hassle of calling again? Plus the lost interest on the money that they probably wouldn't even think of (it's not the money more the principle). There seems to be the attitude that if you don't get paid much then you shouldn't care about your job. This is absolutely the wrong attitude. Regardless of pay everyone should do the best job they can (and there definitely shouldn't be cash incentives for people to meet targets).
I have many more instances of crappy customer services but I will save those for another time. Hopefully my next blog will be less complaining.
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