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UKStave

Listed below are comments made by UKStave between Monday, 4th May 2009 and Monday, 4th May 2009.

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Customer service questionnaire results 8:50pm on 04 May 2009 Re: This evening's show.

I think Watchdog let those companies with poor customer service off the hook tonight. Quite apart from the presenters taking an age to get to the point, they only concentrated on the speed of response, and that's an easy one for the likes of Vodafone and BT to wriggle out of.

Next time Watchdog approaches the issue, it should delve a little deeper. Ask why these companies think contracting out call centres to India "good for the customer" when in reality it's only good for the profit margin. Ask why call centre staff are restricted to working from a script and what do they do when the customer's enquiry strays outside that script? Ask them why they always adopt the policy they they are right and the customer is wrong (which sounds uncannily like the DVLA piece that's been running).

I've recently had problems with BT and their so called customer service; bogged down in India when I knew the problem I had was a technical issue at their local exchange. I had to threaten to take my business elsewhere, twice, in order to get them to deviate from their line that I must be at fault. Three weeks of aggravation ensued before I was finally referred to the exchange engineer who resolved the issue in 25 minutes; a fault in the local exchange would you believe? The complaint process failed too, when the complaint letter was routed to India (despite being addressed to Durham) and I was back in the Indian loop again. Recently I cancelled my services with BT for a specific date in May and they promptly terminated one of the services on that very day, some six weeks early. I complained about that and have been roundly ignored.

It's not just BT either, with Hewlett-Packard and PC World down there with the worst of them. Indeed, I was offered the chance to write to HP's CEO and explain why I felt they'd failed in their service to me. Naturally I suggested (politely) that the CEO might like to try calling his own helpline to gauge the depths to which his company had sunk. I had a very nice reply to say that the CEO had lots of letters and my views would be taken on board. Actually they meant ignored.

Customer service, even when the phone has been answered, is a dirty word for so many companies these days. Contracted out, it's an unsightly carbuncle on the shiny face of the big corporation.

The only way to deal with this charade is to take our business to those companies that do care about their customers; if they exist of course!

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