Your Customer Service Stories Jo Ellen Grzyb

Jo Ellen Grzyb

The good (which starts out bad): quite a few years back I stayed at the Hilton Hotel next to the Business Design Centre in Islington, which my husband I had had nick-named the penitentiary because of it’s bleak architecture. It was rubbish and the food was awful. I avoided it after that, except for one time when my husband and I had no choice and it hadn’t got any better. At one point my husband complained about the lack of hot water and the person at the front desk laughed at him. We were not best pleased. True to the person I am I wrote a letter which only prompted a form letter that paid lip service to wanting to give us the best possible blah blah blah.

About two or three years ago I had to stay overnight in London again, couldn’t get into my usual hotel and dreading it, booked into the Hilton. Transformation! Oh the rooms were pretty much the same, not always in the best shape but scrupulously clean, but in every other way the hotel was a pleasure to stay in. Friendly, warm greetings at the front desk, inventive and tasty food, pleasant staff across the board.

So what if the plaster isn’t perfect around the tub? So what if the water taps don’t work brilliantly? So what? The high level of customer service makes small things negligible because I always feel taken care of; I always feel looked after and I always feel that if I ask for something, the staff will go out of their way to ensure it’s taken care of.

Just as I am quick to write letters of complaint, I am quick to write letters of praise, but now when I write to the Hilton I get an immediate response, so I feel listened to.

Whatever they did works and now Hilton Hotels become my preferred choice rather than a last resort.

The bad: I’m a keen and passionate gardener so I am a keen and passionate visitor to garden centres. I know pretty much all of them in my neck of the woods. Here’s a description of one I visited a few times but won’t ever be going back to: aside from rather sad looking stock, the staff weren’t knowledgeable, but that was nothing compared to being completely uninterested in any question I asked.

A mumbled “I don’t know” or even the staff member walking away with a shrug seemed the order of the day. And the queues! Typically on a Sunday afternoon, one till would be in operation and when I’d finally reach the nirvana of being served (sic), something inevitably seemed to go wrong. If I dared asked for help lugging the big bags of compost to my car, a deep sigh would issue forth and there would be a slow motion, practically resentful groping for the walkie-talkie to try to find someone.

After an age of getting no response, the server (sic) would shrug (they were really good at this body language stuff) and mumble “no one’s available”, and I’d be left standing there with my cart piled high with sacks of stuff as he got on with the next person.

A response to my letter of complaint took at least three months, but by then I knew I and my cash were going elsewhere.

The downright ugly: Oh dear, I get depressed just thinking about this saga, let alone writing about it. T’was to do with a phone company that shall remain nameless out of the goodness of my heart and so I won’t get sued, who must have the worst customer service I have ever encountered and that’s saying a lot. I’m over 60, I’ve had lots of good, bad and ugly customer care, so to top the bill as the worst has to be pretty bad indeed.

Moving house, want my phone switched. Am assured I can have my old number. Am given a date when the switch will be made and the order completed. I take his name...just in case. I move. I wait. The big day passes. I phone, I have to press two for moving house; I press two; I have to press three for already placed order, I press three. I am on a queue but my call is important. I’m kind of OK at this point because I don’t know what’s to come.

Eventually I get a person, who tells me I got it wrong. No I didn’t get it wrong, this is what I was told by your colleague. She now spends her time taking details about that original call so she can get authorisation to listen to the tapes to see who was telling the truth. The issue of my new phone is off the agenda till I bring it back. She has to listen to the call first to see what was said.

Meanwhile, she cheerfully informs me my order was only going to go in on the date I was given for completing the work, so it will be at least another two weeks before I get a phone. And by the way I wasn’t going to get my old phone number though I’d only moved a few streets away and that never would have been promised because it wasn’t on the list of things they are supposed to say to customers. Not happy, really not happy, especially as I am receiving zero empathy on the other end of the line.

All right, when will someone phone me to tell me the results of this investigation?. If she gets the authorisation, it will be by the end of the week. Oh oh. I take her name.

The end of the week comes and goes, no phone call. The following Monday I phone, go through the pressing numbers two and three rigmarole once again and wait on the queue. Now I’m getting a bit more cheesed off as I’m using a mobile and the costs are mounting up. When I finally get to someone who has to hear the story all over again and has trouble finding my file, I tell her I don’t appreciate paying for lengthy phone calls on my mobile and she takes my number and rings me right back.

I’m lulled into a very false sense of security because I think Oh goodie! Someone’s taking me seriously. Ha ha. Stating the obvious, she says, “Someone should have phoned you last week.” Yes, I know, that’s why I’m phoning now. Full of apologies, she assures me she is taking full responsibility for my situation and it will be sorted by Friday or at least she will ring to let me know why not.

Ahhhh. I feel so much better. Till Friday of course.

No phone call, no reasons why not. So I phone again, go through what I feel I could do in my sleep, tell the story all over again and am then told I shouldn’t be phoning this number and he hangs up without giving me the number I should phone.

I’m not going to go into the sordid details of how many more phone calls I made (at least a dozen), the promises, broken with every conversation, and the complete lack of any sense of ‘ownership’ of my problem. Needless to say, it took over a month to get a phone and much much aggravation.

Now in the great scheme of things, not having a phone for six weeks is no big deal, especially with mobile phones and email. BUT, I’m paying for service. That’s the point here. All that was needed to keep me from wanting to fling my phone across the room in frustration, raging at whoever was unfortunate to be on the receiving end of my umpteenth call, and stomping around my new house railing at their customer service (sic) department, was accurate information given in a timely way. “I’m so sorry Mrs Grzyb, we won’t be able to sort this problem out until next week, but I will phone you on Thursday to keep you up to date with progress.” And then do that.

Not a lot, but even writing about it I am back in the blood boiling feelings I had then, that’s how powerful bad customer service can be!