Customer Service in UK


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Well had a brill holiday cruising around Germany's River's

The staff on the boat were mostly from "Romania" and could not do enough for you,

At the start of our holiday we caught the train to Folkestone getting up at 5 00am  we arrived at the Holliday Inn which as Saga had said the coach leaves from their for the tunnel, so to save rushing we had booked a room. Arrived about 11 30 and had on the train a cup of dishwater sorry cup of tea, so at reception ask if any sandwich's were available  Answer  "If you go to the end of the road there is a Tesco they sell sandwich's WHAT!!!! I have been up half the night felt drained then told to go to "Tesco" I only wanted a cheese butty.

Getting back to the good old UK at Nottingham Station, the lift was out of order, no rail staff  in sight to help with luggage, when finely found way out there were approx. 20 step's to go up. Getting to the top puffing and panting, their were two member's of rail staff. we told/ask about the lift and one with a smirk  on his face told me that I should not take 18 pairs of shoes with me and I should take a smaller case, Now come on lets have some politeness, any way though the ticket barrier we went, but while master had a rest I went back to these two chaps (sorry could not help myself) told them one day they to would be our ages and they would have heath problems. As member's know I have Parkinson's and Master heart problems, this I also told them, walking away I could hear verbal abuse from the two staff. 

Went on Nottingham station site to tell them about said staff, but for some reason e-mail was sent to the train ombudsman  who gave me two e-mail address's to send complaint to but by this time I had lost the will to carry on.

Must admit when I went on the Nottingham station site it did say about the lift and if you wanted help with your case's ask, but not everyone our age has the internet, but this is not an  excuse for any member of staff to act the way they did there should have been a member of staff on that platform to help passenger's it was not only us who had lugged problems.

 

"SO WHEN IN BRITTEN ARE WE GOING TO GET ANY  CUSTOMER SEVICE?"

 

Hopefully member's  will  keep this thread going let's Name  and Shame them, those people who don't give us 100% Customer Service

 

it cost nothing 

 

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1 hour ago, mary1947 said:

 

Hopefully member's  will  keep this thread going let's Name  and Shame them, those people who don't give us 100% Customer Service

 

it cost nothing 

I think it does cost, we pay their wages through the goods that we buy!!.

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Before I retired I worked in a small convenience shop which belonged to a large chain (McColls) so thought would give a view from the other side although I too would have had a “go” at the above mentioned employees so am not defending their disgraceful behaviour. 

As I said the shop was a small convenience store and there was usually just 2 members of staff on shift most of the while, our customers were mostly regulars who we got to know we’ll, being on first name terms of many of them. I would say that 95% of the customers were great (they would moan about the prices but McColls isn’t the cheapest of shops but we would take it on the chin and explain there was nothing we could do about it). We had targets to meet on “link sales” which were usually chocolate bars or sweets bags and had to ask every customer if they wanted them, a lot of regulars would come into the shop and say immediately “don’t want chocolate etc.” Most would have a laugh about it but some got quite abusive but we had to do it as the manager was in trouble if targets were not met. There were some customers who we dreaded coming in as they were so “difficult”, we had one lady who would quibble over a few pence difference in her paper bill, which was usually when the delivery charge was put up by about 10p and would refuse to pay any extra. Another one who came in to pay her paper bill every month and we had to go through every day with her to see what papers had been delivered, she always came in when we were busy so it left 1 member of staff to try and clear the queue that formed.  You very often felt like going in the office and banging your head off the wall with some customers but you just had to take what they said, not take it personally (which was hard sometimes when they were shouting at you) and keep calm. Members of staff have had newspapers thrown at them with some force when the paper kids delivered the wrong papers and verbal abuse over the phone for wrong papers or no paper at all with demands that we should immediately go out and deliver the paper. We took a lot of flak for the paper kids but they were the ones who got tips at Christmas not us. We had a big Asda open just round the corner so this obviously affected the shop, but we managed to keep our regulars by giving good service and always being ready to banter with them and being as helpful as possible. Very often we got people coming in who didn’t usually for lottery and pay point payments when the queue at Asda was too long (they had to pay for groceries and then join another queue for them). Then we come to the shoplifters, we got to know who to look out for and could usually get rid of them before they took anything, although a few would slip through the net. Some ofthe staff have been threatened and we were told not to tackle them but it is hard not to, everyone else pays for the goods they take in the prices in shops. I have been working and have had regular male customers frogmarch shoplifters out of the shop with a few choice words. 

Would I work in retail again, yes I enjoyed it even though at times I had to bite my lip.  I am always polite to retail staff I know what they can go through but do get frustrated with bad service. So all in all I would say most of the general public are fine but those that aren’t are a pain in the rear end but this is no excuse for bad service or rudeness to customers, as the good make up for the bad. What is the answer for bad service? Complain to the right people but remember perhaps the customer before you was one of the 5% of “difficult” customers but this is no excuse for verbal abuse to customers as, yes, they do pay your wages and without them you would not have a job. Sorry didn’t intend this to be such a long posting.

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SG.........can sympathise with you ref' shoplifters in small stores,,,, i worked in a few McColls around Sheffield/Rotherham as a  plain clothes Store Detective,, plus many of the Coops that are now McColls.

                           It wasn't so much what they stole,,more the intimidation and threats they gave to these lady Staff members,,who often worked just two of em until 10 and 11 oclock at night,,i worked with em to this time and they were always glad to see us.  I blame the Management for allowing this,,very seldom saw male staff at night and never any Managers,who always finished at 5.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Our manager finished at 2, very rarely worked nites unless someone rang in sick. At one time the idea was mooted that supervisors work 9 until 10 on their own at nite, staff said no it wasn’t safe so the idea was dropped. Only ever had one male supervisor while I worked there, he was 6’3 and looked like a biker (he wasn’t) so always felt safe working with him at night. 

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34 minutes ago, Stavertongirl said:

Only ever had one male supervisor while I worked there, he was 6’3 and looked like a biker (he wasn’t) so always felt safe working with him at night. 

 I presume that you refer to the "hells Angel" type and not the "tour de France" type?

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Just another example 

just been around Europe by car and called in a booze shop in France, their were some English people in front of us and they were having a go at the shop assistant nothing was speared, must admit felt guilty being from the UK so I tried to use a bit of French that I had learned, did not work very well but did come out of the shop in one piece.

The other thing was the shop was called "EastEnders" 

no more to say.

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Not exactly about direct customer service , more customer experience but we have a brand new Costa opened before Christmas on the edge of town .

Went in on to give it a try Friday as Mrs W insists on having a coffee whenever we are out . Not the relaxing experience we expected !

 

The place was full of teenagers , probably about 13 or 14 years old , in various groups huddled around different tables .

Some had their feet on the lower tables , some were sitting on tables  , some lounging with feet on chairs . They probably occupied a quarter of all the seats .No drink or food in front of them and whilst we were there , none of them bought any drinks .

To be fair they were no more noisy than you would expect a bunch of teenagers to be but there was a continual tooing and froing  as different ones (mainly girls) rolled some tobacco and went out to have a smoke , leaving the door wide open each time on a cold day .

A couple of lads were swinging monkey-like on the struts of the outside parasol ! One came back in to unplug his phone charger out the mains and another came back in , asking for first-aid as he'd injured his hand whilst hanging off the parasol .

 

There were three young staff on and none of them said a word to the teens at any time  . I suppose on a cold winters day there's not much for kids to do and it will be different tomorrow when they are back at school but put us off going in there again .

 

 

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