In a world where things work as they should, a customer would go to a company and arrange to buy something. The discussion would specify the goods to be delivered, the delivery date, and the price. The customer would pay the price, and the goods would be delivered at the time specified.
That's a nice fiction.
The way it really works is that the discussion specifies the goods to be delivered, the delivery date and the price, the customer pays the price, and then the company jerks the customer around in every possible way until such time as the customer loses patience, demands a refund, and has his lawyer start legal proceedings to recover his money.
Some examples: I ordered a sofa in January. I paid the full, not inconsiderable, price. They specified a 12-week delivery time, which took us to the end of March. Then, at the start of February, they phoned to inform my answering maching that there was a delay of unspecified length.
I moved in April, so I contacted the company and asked them what was happening. They declared that they could not deliver before the move, so agreed to deliver to my parents' address. The sofa is now sitting in their warehouse in the south of England. They are apparently having difficulties finding a truck to put it on to shift it up here.
The reality is that they have plenty of trucks, but they're all full with unsold sofas for their stores. Because I've already paid, they have no motivation to actually deliver my sofa - potential customers must come first over actual customers. I think I will start a book on when the sofa will actually arrive. (I will also be posting here when it does arrive, including details of the company I won't be buying from again. However, I won't be doing so before then, because antagonising the people before they deliver the sofa is sure to have it 'accidentally' fall into a wood-chipper and be delayed further).
Second, there is my ISP. I have paid for 2 years of broadband service up front. I got a really good deal on that service. I have also paid them a significant fee to move my service to my new flat. On Thursday, the light on my router started flashing, indicating that BT have connected the line for broadband, but my router won't connect like it should.
I emailed tech support asking about the situation. I got an automated reply, promising that an engineer would be in touch within 24 hours. I'm still waiting.
They also have a technical support phone line. Which is nice, except that it charges £1 per minute. Nonetheless, thinking I would need to phone to get immediate service (rather than sending an email that someone can just ignore), I phoned the number. There was an introductory recorded message, lasting just over a minute of course, explaining that this was a tech support line (duh!) and that some calls are recorded. Then I was told they were experiencing an "unusual volume of calls" and that I was being placed in a queue. Please hold!
Yeah, right. At £1 a minute?
Now, to be fair to them, my ISP did say it might be up to 3 weeks before the switch-over was complete. That does not expire until tomorrow. So, if they manage to sort out the problems before then, I'll not complain too much. However, I find myself wondering whether that is likely or not...
Then there's Sky.
Leaving aside for the moment the annoyance of having to sign a 12-month contract with them (when I'm on a 6-month lease), there's the issue that I'm paying a sum every month for service. In addition, there was a charge for moving the service to a new address. Once again, this has all been set up to prepay. And these charges are not unreasonable.
So, Sky arranged for an engineer to come and fit a new dish last Saturday. I waited by the phone all last Saturday. No sign. So, I called their help(!)line, and was told that an engineer had been at my flat at 9:33, and had tried to call my mobile phone.
Sadly, it is entirely possible that I was asleep at 9:33. It had been a late night, and I didn't set my alarm; nor did I note when I woke up. However, my phone had no missed calls. So, I enquired about this, and was given the number the engineer called. The number was wrong - it had an extra digit.
That's infuriating, but somewhat understandable. Although why the engineer didn't notice that my phone number was a freakish abomination with 12 digits rather than the 11 shared by all other phone numbers in the country, and why he didn't therefore try my home phone number (which Sky also have on record) is beyond me.
Oh, the woman on the help(!)line also said that if I hadn't heard anything by 9:30, I should have called them to enquire what was going on. Useful information when I called at 16:50!
Anyway, never mind. A new installation date was arranged, for this Saturday.
This time, I set my alarm. I made sure both mobile and home phones were beside me all day. (Oh, and I'd corrected their copy of my mobile number, too.)
I waitied.
I waited some more.
At 9:50, I called them. The guy on the help(!)line said he didn't know what was happening. He tried to call the engineer, without success. He assured me that the engineer was coming, and that I would be called with a time of arrival.
I waited.
I waited some more.
At 14:30, I called again. I explained the situation. A different guy on the help(!)line got in touch with the engineering department. He then informed me that the engineer had called in sick that morning, and that they had meant to call me.
It of course made me feel much better that they had intended to call me. I still don't have Sky, and their customer service sucks beyond all reason, but at least I have the warm fuzzy feeling that they meant to call me.
So, a new installation date has been arranged. Unsurprisingly, it's set for this Saturday, since I kind of have to go to work, so can't spend a whole day waiting for an engineer who might or might not show up. Never mind that that means wasting half of my weekend doing the same.
What gets me most in all of these cases is not so much the waiting. I'm a fairly patient person. If you say it will be three weeks (or even three months) for something, I'll wait. Or take my business elsewhere. No, it's that they haven't done the things that they said they would.
An engineer falling sick is not the company's fault. It's not the engineer's fault. It is literally "circumstances beyond our control". However, failing to tell me most definately is their fault, as is not having the right number the week before. Likewise, I can understand a delay in delivering a sofa of a few weeks. However, it is unacceptable to have it stuck at the wrong end of the country because you "can't find a van to transport it." If you were really determined, you could do it very quickly - I took about half an hour to find the van rental service I used to transport all my possessions up from Yeovil. (Of course, that costs money...) And don't promise you'll get back to someone "within 24 hours" if you have no reasonable expectation of doing so. We don't like being lied to.
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