Customer Perception
Posted: Sat 15 May, 2010 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »For some reason these anti-depressants also seem to be turning me into some kind of altruistic do-gooder. Pretty scary stuff.
Mind you, in this case I’m pretty sure I’d have dealt with it regardless, but there we go.
Anyway, in this particular instance I was at the till in the local Sainsbury’s, and behind me was an old couple, one in a wheelchair with one of the disabled trolley things on the front. They were having serious issues with getting the stuff from the trolley onto the till belt, so I offered to help them. It embarassed the woman a bit I think, to be seen as “needing assistance”, but still I did help, and got it all done with them.
The bit that pissed me off though is that this particular till was the one where the till “supervisor” stands, and at the time there were three members of Sainsbury’s staff at that position, along with the useless sack of shit known as a security guard. All three of the staff had looked at the old couple, seen they were having problems, and ignored them. Cue the red mist.
Once I was done, I got the till supervisor over, and really gave him a bollocking. I don’t know if it’ll have any effect, but I think it got through to him pretty clearly that I was deeply pissed off, that it was incredible for three staff (plus a useless lump) to watch that couple and do nothing, and for it to end up with another customer helping them out instead of the staff doing it.
eTyres
Posted: Tue 20 April, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Business, Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Reviews(ish) 1 Comment »So following on from yesterday’s discovery of a flat tyre, I booked in (and paid in advance) through eTyres.co.uk to get it fixed at home. eTyres offer their service at home, which is ideal when you’ve got a flat.
However, the motto of this entire story is that if you’re going to have a puncture and use eTyres, don’t do it on a weekend. Despite being able to book and order online, for some fuckforsaken reason they can’t organise things ’til the Monday morning. And at that point they’ve also got to deal with all the people who’ve booked on the Saturday.
I did try to change the tyre myself so I could get down to the local tyre place, but the wheelnuts were on so tight I couldn’t even move the sodding things. Insurance-wise I was going to be lowest of the low priority calls, and they couldn’t even give me a time expectation. So all told that left me pretty much at the mercy of eTyres.
Having made the booking online yesterday evening, they finally arrived at 5.30. Yep, a whole day. So much for the speed of booking via the internet etc. etc.
In the end they’ve done a decent job, and for a fairly decent price. Not as great as they make out in their marketing, but not bad.
But if you need a swift service that’ll actually get the job done, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend eTyres to anyone.
I Am A Twat
Posted: Fri 12 March, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Domestic, Getting Organised, Stupidity Leave a comment »In a couple of weekends we’ll be going to the O2 to see Peter Gabriel in concert. (Again) So I booked the car-parking a week or so ago.
To be fair, booking the parking spot is pretty easy, and they even give you the name of the gig, so you can check you’re booking for the right day.
Only it turns out that Peter Gabriel’s now doing two nights at the O2, right after each other. You can see where this is going, can’t you?
So yeah, I need to find out whether I can refund the one on the wrong fucking day.
What a twat.
Crunch – Ongoing Debacle
Posted: Wed 13 January, 2010 Filed under: Customer Services, Driving 1 Comment »The hire car got collected on Monday, and I was expecting to have my car back the same day. It’d been promised as such by the poxy bodyshop.
Only of course that’s not what happened.
They called me on Monday afternoon – well after the hire car had been collected – to say that “the computer hadn’t ordered things properly”, they were missing some parts that were needed for irrelevant shit like attaching the front bumper. So it wouldn’t be ready on Monday. No chance. Everything would be delivered on Tuesday, then they’d deliver the car to me.
Noon on Tuesday, they called to say that everything had arrived, it was all fitted, and they were going to get it cleaned before delivering it to me. Great.
Ten past noon, the manager called to say Um, actually, he’d taken my car from where it was parked to go to wherever it was for cleaning the car, and had scratched/dented the front wing on another car. Fuck me, crash damage while in the bodyshop – that’s got to be a novelty, if not a first.
Anyway, because it’s knackered, they tried getting a rental car for me, except no-one had one available. Fortunately they’ve eventually found a courtesy car for me to use – free of charge – while they finish everything off.
Even better, because they’ve made such a monumental fuckup of the entire thing, and already cost me two days off work (we’ll gloss over the entire “working from home” thing, shall we? Heh) they’re now also repairing/repainting all the other scratches I’ve built up on the car over the last three years.
So we’ll see what happens from here. I’ve got the courtesy car so I can get to and from work again. They’re currently saying it’ll be Friday now for the work to be done – I’m not holding my breath on that score, to be honest. But at least I’m back to being mobile, able to get to work and so on.
And once I do get my car back, it’ll be back to how it was when I bought it, and for no further cost than the insurance excess.
So while it’s all a bit of a clusterfuck, I think I’ll come out of it OK in the end. Fingers crossed.
Getting Rid
Posted: Mon 11 January, 2010 Filed under: Business, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving Leave a comment »At some point today, Enterprise Car Hire are supposed to be collecting the piece-of-shit hire car I’ve had since the accident on the 17th December.
I haven’t yet collected my own car, but according to the bodyshop that should be ready for collection today, or at latest tomorrow. Let’s hope.
So far, my experience with Enterprise has been unremittingly negative. It took them two days to even deliver the sodding car, and extending the hire for a third week was an exercise in stupidity, so I’m really not expecting them to arrive here today to collect the damn thing at all. Still, that’s not my problem – so long as they don’t try charging me for extra hire days due to their incompetence/idiocy. We’ll see.
Mind you, they also haven’t yet even charged me for the third weeks’ hire, so it’s not all a failure. But we’ll see whether they get that one right too.
In short though, I really wouldn’t recommend Enterprise Car Hire to anyone. While they might be a bit more expensive, I’ll stick with Avis in future, thanks.
Update : They actually came and collected the car by 10am. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that they’re a lot more efficient at getting the car back than they are at delivering the damn thing.
Crunch – Enterprise Car Hire
Posted: Sun 20 December, 2009 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Driving, Travel 1 Comment »Because of the damage to my car (and that damn fence) I’ve had to make a claim on the car insurance for the first time. Of course, it’s going to cost me the no-claims bonus and so on – and result in having to note it if I change insurer for the next few years – as well as the excess, but it’s going to be better to pay out £300 than the fuck-only-knows-how-much for both car repairs and fence reconstruction.
So far though – and as with previous things where I’ve used their recovery services – I’ve been really impressed with Tesco Insurance. Having had the accident, the recovery vehicle was with me within an hour as promised.
On Friday, having called them at 9am to register the claim itself, I was told that the car would be taken to their recommended bodyshop – I did have the choice of using my preferred one, but then it’s fucking about with estimates etc. – within four hours, and that the courtesy car people (Enterprise car hire) would be in touch also within four hours.
By 10am, the garage had called me, explained they’d need to get a different company to lug the car, and the different company had also called me to arrange collecting the car. By 12 the car was on the way to the garage on the back of a flatbed. Efficiency personified.
The only cloud so far has been Enterprise bloody car hire. The promised callback didn’t happen by 1pm. Fair enough, it was a shitty and busy day, but they’re a big company, you’d think someone would’ve been able to call, if only to say “We’re really busy, but will get back to you”. I called Tesco insurance back, and they got hold of Enterpriuse, and promised a call back again within two hours.
And still nothing. I ended up calling them at 4pm, and still not speaking to the right place “because they were too busy”. They finally called back at 4.30 to say “We’re not going to get to you today”. And that was it, so far as the Diss office was concerned. They weren’t open on Saturday, so *shrug*. We might be able to get out to you on Monday. Maybe.
I did sort out going to the Norwich office to collect one on Saturday, but that fell through for other reasons. So now I’ll be getting picked up to get to the Norwich office, rather than Diss. Frankly, I’ve no confidence in the Diss office at all, and have explained that to both Tesco Insurance, and the Norwich office.
We’ll see what happens on Monday, and whether Enterprise manage to sort themselves out for this one.