Great 'How to make an effective complaint' Hunt

John_Pierpoint

Perhaps I should not judge all public servants working for local authorities by the poor standards of my authority.
Does any body else get the feeling of "we know what is good for you".
I wonder what the mean time to answer the 'phone is?
Today I had a need to call a government "service". (Auctually I am doing them a service as unpaid tax collector).
Went through the usual "press1 - press2 - press3........" stuff and then hung on listening to music for 15 minutes. Then someone answered the 'phone and conveniently dropped it.
Surprise surprise it was now 13:00 hrs and I expect they wanted to go to lunch.

Hobbin_Rood

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Went through the usual "press1 - press2 - press3........" stuff and then hung on listening to music for 15 minutes. Then someone answered the 'phone and conveniently dropped it.
Surprise surprise it was now 13:00 hrs and I expect they wanted to go to lunch.

In my office, we had 50% of the staff that were needed until very recently (we had to constantly complain and get the union involved for these positions to be filled again - the other people had left due to stress / workload as it happened and were simply not replaced).

It was simply impossible to answer all the calls coming in. Most callers gave up or we took a long time to answer them and they were often angry and rightly so. This held up the other things like paperwork and as a result created a snowball of people phoning back to complain and so on and on.

Management would simply not rectify the situation. Too busy swanning around in conferences and meetings and not listening to their staff or the customers (and i suspect it makes them look good if they can appear to "manage" a department with less resources than they are budgeted for).

When lunchtime came, I was very glad of the break. I HAD to stop, often my head would be pounding with the constant ringing of phones and amount of calls taken. I couldn't sleep at night because of the stress.

Can you blame someone for not being there if right before lunch they do drop the phone genuinely but it is now their only break of the day and they are so stressed out?

Try and remember that when you get on the phone. The person on the other end does NOT want a hard time. If they could answer quick they no doubt would. In most cases, these companies are squeezing their staff to maxmimise profits. They really don't care about you as customers or their staff.

It's sad but true. If only people could target managers etc with the right complaints - WHY don't you have more staff, ARE they properly trained, WHAT do you spend your profits if not on infrastructure and staffing..

One example of gross incompetence which affected customers but was in no way caused by the frontline staff in my office is this:

In my work the govt dept decided to reformat the forms used to apply for this service. We used all of the supply we had. They took a full month to get new ones sorted. So we had to turn people away and deal with the complaints as a result. I would be furious too, but there was NO way for us as front line staff to rectify it. We had to wait. A ridiculous state of affairs.

We told people it was the dept's fault. I bet few of them complained to their MP or the head of that dept. They just shouted and bawled at us, holding up with the other parts of the service.

People need to be cleverer and think about these things. The people on the frontline want to help you and have a pleasant day - and I bet it's the same in all industries. We would never !!!! people off intentionally as many think. I mean think about it, we could lose our jobs.

Shytalker

I was in the horrifying position in 2007 of having finally paid off my mortgage to the Halifax Mortgages office in Leeds, only to find that one of their employees had transferred it into a private account.

Their fraud people were not very focussed until I suggested that I would see how well their investigation went on, and then decide whether to bring the police in.

I think that made all the difference and it was all sorted out after weeks of anguish and lost sleep. Never had an apology or any sort of compensation, I was too proud to ask for it. Their customer service stank.

My message is: if there is dishonesty involved, suggest that the law might sort it out. The company reputation (if any) would then be at stake.

Tozer

Hobbin_Rood wrote: »

In my office, we had 50% of the staff that were needed until very recently (we had to constantly complain and get the union involved for these positions to be filled again - the other people had left due to stress / workload as it happened and were simply not replaced).

I suspect you will find that the public sector is at least as bad...although for some strange, unknown reason, the number of people leaving and off sick due to stress seems to be much lower....

John_Pierpoint

Shytalker wrote: »

Their fraud people were not very focussed until I suggested that I would see how well their investigation went on, and then decide whether to bring the police in.
.

I'm afraid that there is an unholy alliance between banks, the police and government to pretend that millions of pounds of fraud is not a crime.
The banks know that fraud can bring the system to its knees (as is being demonstrated now).
The police like being seen as a matcho action based service - how long before "Police Camera Action" is replaced by "The Fraud Busters"? Don't hold your breath.
The government needs to spin the crime statistics - so fraud is now a non crime until the BANK reports it.

The following thread gives an interesting insight into the differing attitudes in USA & UK.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=5436926#post5436926

I wonder how long it will be before some of the mortgage fraudsters and their agents get prosecuted in UK. These are the people who have brought our economy to its knees.

Ah well better get back on thread.

John_Pierpoint

Tozer wrote: »

I suspect you will find that the public sector is at least as bad...although for some strange, unknown reason, the number of people leaving and off sick due to stress seems to be much lower....

So we are agreed that us "punters" CAN do some good by reporting the incompetence to the director responsible! Only he has the ability to put more "resources" into customer service.
We know the front line staff cannot do a good job because they do NOT have the ability to make the decisions and they may well be over worked (check the car park at 20:00 and see how many are still grafting away meeting their objectives).

Beware of any organisation that uses an 0800 number for sales but funny thing the "customer service" is an 0870 number.

I have twice had a "judgement" from the ombudsman (and 950 GBP in compensation) against my local council BUT the only change in staff has been a front line young woman, who seemed to me to be trying to do a good job. Did she jump or was she pushed?
The rest of the "managers" are still playing politics and defending their interests and running rings round their political masters.
Who is paying for this?

John

PS The phone was not dropped by accident it was answered. I could hear people talking in the office for about 30 seconds during which time there was no attempt to speak to me before cutting me off..

PPS I'm not sure that the numbers off sick in the public service is less than in the private sector - I have experience of both.
The problem in the public service seems to be that one is not judged by results but by how you do the job. This can change at the whim of a (new) manager or some sort of new political necessity. When objectives are unclear and performance cannot be monitored accurately discipline goes out of the window and the workers get stressed - it is the "executive monkey" problem of being responsible for a situation you cannot control.

alexcross

I have no idea if this is the right place to put this but here goes.......two weeks ago i reserved an Xbox 360 arcade version, package for £169.97 online with Argos however when I got to the store they tried to charge me £199.99 after them humming and moaning about it they came to the conclusion that I had reserved the wrong type of xbox and I had infact reserved the pro version ( a better version apparently ) and not the arcade version which is what I wanted. Well I ended up paying £179.97 for the thing instead. I was really miffed ....then When I got home I checked my reservation in my inbox and it clearly states that I HAD reserved the arcade version and not the pro when I went to see the store manager they refused to accept responsibility and said the fault still lay with me even though I had my reservation print out with me.
I contacted Argos through email and they are saying I have to take it up with the store. I have have explained that they are not taking any responsibility but they are not wavering......is this not false advertising????? they conned me into buying a dearer product!!!!!!

babyx1uk3

i recently went into argos and ended up being told to pay more than what i was quoted online and when i reserved it but i stood my ground and didnt budge until she checked it online, it took about 20minutes for her to do it but i was right and paid the amount i wanted to. I dont think its false advertising as it says online that the price online is not always the same as insotre but the fact that you reserved it should make it that you should have paid only £169.97.
Im no expert at all on this sort of thing but if i was you, i would do as they said and go instore, just say you would like the extra £10 you paid for it back and see what they say, the worst they can do is say no and then you would be back where you were or you could be £10 up and got the console for what you wanted.
hope this helps.x

alexcross

thnaks baby I did this and was told no I said I'd stand there till I got it (had print out too of reservation) but they said they would get security to escort me off their property I was soooooo embarassed the shop was cramed packed. I felt such an idiot anyway I have emailed company again and told them I am now going to trading standards and I will be posting this on every review site I can think of as well as informing the press.......I await a reply from them.

Xenssa

raineshoe wrote: »

Dell - phone up and whoever answers ask them the name of the CEO and where their head office is they should be able to tell you.

However, I have found some companies these days the staff can't tell you who the CEO is which is an appalling state of affairs I think.

Alternatively get their head office address, should be on their web site somewhere as they should have contact details on their web site and address it Addressee only - Chief Executive.

Try this email address [EMAIL="Aongus_Hegarty@Dell.com"]Aongus_Hegarty@Dell.com[/EMAIL] - he's the UK Ops Director (or atleast he was a few months ago - but they do change around). I was having problems with Dell earlier in the year - tried everything and was getting nowhere. Finally tracked down the email address of the UK CEO and Mr Hegarty. He was great and problem resolved within a couple of days. Good luck!