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anyway, after putting up a little fight i said i wanted to cancel my account. and as soon as the put you through to the cancellation department the guy offers to send an engineer for free.
after reading up on the internet afterwards, i see that it's a common tip. apparently its company policy to send the guy for free as soon as you say you want to cancel.
nice tip to remember next time your sky box breaks - saves you sixty quid.
He called and complained and got fobbed off.
He called next time it happened and got fobbed off.
He was going to give up but I told him to keep bugging them.
He called again and they remotely formatted the drive in the box.
Didn't fix it.
He called again and they replaced his box.
Didn't fix it.
He called again and they told him it must be connected wrong.
He reconnected it all (without homemade extension cables).
Didn't fix it.
He called again and they sent an engineer to inspect the cabling.
All was fine.
He called again and the replaced his box, again.
Finally, it worked properly. After your story it was nice they didn't try to charge him for multiple engineer visits, or 2 new Sky+ boxes, but it is worrying that a second box appeared to have the same fault. Maybe they turned a blind eye to it and he got a used return the first time around!
1. Never put the phone down - they will never hang up on you
2. If they can't help you straight away ask to speak to their manager. They will claim they are unavailable. Don't take this, keep asking for them. They will go through a standard list of "They aren't here, they are on another call" Just keep saying "Well put me through to their manager" They will soon tire and get them.
3. Repeat until you get what you want. Us english accept being passed around and ignored far too much.
Regarding making a complaint, it's OK when you can find a human to talk to. Is this a bad service rant? Right, well here goes ...
On Monday my printer broke down while under guarantee. I called Epson and got good service. I was told that if I took it to my nearest service centre (an hour and a half drive) they would replace it no question. They also offered me a replacement by DHL courier service for a £10 charge. I paid the £10 and was told that the replacement would be delivered next day (yesterday) when they would also pick up the faulty printer.
They could not tell me when it would be delivered so I rearranged my schedule for Tuesday so that I would be in all day. My doorbell is not working and I work upstairs so I left a Window open so that I could hear the guy at the front door (my office is directly above.) In the middle of the afternoon my wife found a card behind the door, "Sorry you weren't in, etc."
Apparently their delivery man did not have the wit to realise that the bell was not working and to try knocking the bloody door. (I have a glass door through which he could see that the television was on the window upstairs was wide open and there was clearly someone at home.
I wanted to complain so there was a number for the nearest DHL depot on the card. I called this number and got an automatic system that did not allow me to talk to anyone. I called their UK HQ and asked for another number. They gave me one which no one will answer. Their system is clearly designed to make it very difficult for people to complain.
Clearly they are not interested in hearing what people think of their service. They also think that it is quite reasonable to expect people to sit waiting all day for a delivery instead of giving them an idea whether it will be morning or afternoon.
This is just another example of where we are heading with regard to service here in the UK. I dread having to call anyone for service or support now because I know that it is going to be hassle before I even lift the phone. We really need to try to turn this around but how?
[edited by: BeeDeeDubbleU at 10:43 am (utc) on Oct. 31, 2007]
They don't want to deal with you and will sort out your problem in seconds by bascially passing you to someone who can sort and telling them to sort it. They know you will keep phoning them if you don't get what you want and get it sorted!
We really need to try to turn this around but how?
Be persistent, they don't like being bugged.
As Bateman said, don't hang up until you get a decent answer, they won't hang up.
I find turning the tables works well, don't ask them what they'll do, tell them what they should do. It usually confuses the CSR enough for them to agree with you.
On a different note, here's some good customer service I had from Dell. As you may know, Dell try to charge £50 +vat for shipping, here's what I did.
I call on Tuesday 23rd evening to place an order. I wanted 4 laptops, but did the order just for 1.
We settled on a price, then he tells me it doesn't include shipping.
How much is that then?
£50 +vat...sir.
That's ridiculous, I'm not paying that, I could ship a washing machine for less!
Pause.
Are you still there?
Ummmm.....let me ask my supervisor.
Pause.
He says if you want more than 1 we can ship the whole order for £50.
So I tell him I want 4, works out to £12.50 each, fine I got what I want. Then I move on to delivery time.
They'll be with you by 6th November (14 days).
What? I could walk there and get it myself faster.
Ummmm, it probably won't take that long they just say that to be safe.
ok, if I don't get them within 7 days I'll be calling you to find out why.
(take his name and direct number)
Thanks a lot goodbye.
I was away that week, a courier called on Fri 26th, 3rd working day. Arranged a Saturday delivery at no extra cost, job done!
And I have to say for cheapy cheapy laptops they are good build quality, and good performance too. I'm impressed.
Once you call into the central office and get a real person, the call is being transfer internally. This often means the the Caller ID is displaying the transfer call as coming from inside.
Soooo, don't give yourself away at the get-go. Anne transfer you to customer service, but the customer service (call him John) sees this is coming from Anne. A clue that you've got this going is how they answer the phone. If they say their name, you're in. Start off saying as if you're a weary pro like him, "Hi, John. It's YOUR NAME. We haven't met, but Anne said you could help me. I've got a small problem that needs to be resolved."
