Next Directory - Abusive call to my father

syledis

i do vote with my feet, its no that companies arent making profits by keeping workers here, its the fact that they want bigger profits that bothers me

kazzah

kiddy_guy wrote: »

Couple of Points.

Firstly payroll is not in India. Processing of payroll is. Kazzah's friend should have contacted Payroll at H.Office to resolve the issue, but obviously isn't clued up enough on the process. I would also add that a human error led to her pay/holiday not being processed - this could happen at any company, so it's not just a Next thing. The fact it wasn't followed up well enough - the employee should have contacted HR if they did not feel it was being dealt with well enough - 10 months - that says as much about the person as the company.

Cotswold Co has recently gone into admin, predated by the Pier, MFI, Ilva, and possibly followed by Cargo and maybe others. Next trying to protect their business is not a bad thing - how many employees would go if they stopped trying to reduce costs?

are you POSITIVE that payroll isn't in India???
despite contacting payroll and HR at "head office" my friend was CONTINUALLY put straight through to INDIA where the payroll department was located
I think my friend and her store manager " were clued up enough" to know how to get her BACK onto the payroll system - they did so by contacting India - I agree that "human error" played a part in this process, but how convenient that it all went in the favour of Next and NOT the employee

please do NOT insult my friend with your comments on the length of time it took to resolve " saying as much about her as the company "

she HAD to go to work there every week - despite the fact the company owed her a SUBSTANTIAL amount of money - what should/could she have done any differently to obtain her backpay any other way?

the ONLY way their PAYROLL SYSTEM would let her have the money the company owed her was to LEAVE Next altogether - she consulted one of the top employment lawyers in the region at her own expense, who also told her according to Next employment rules and her "new" contract of emplyment that she could only receive the money when she left the company.

I suspect you either work for Next or have a relative/friend who does -therefore I can understand you wishing to defend the company
if you don't know anyone who works for them - that would explain your misunderstanding about the payroll difficulties

of course, if Next are so wonderful to work for- why do they have one of the quickest staff turnover rates in retail today? - very few staff stay longer than 18 months and many a considerable lot less

thankfully her date for her constructive dismissal hearing at an employment tribunal is imminent and her lawyer is confident that she will receive substantial damages - after all, she had to leave a job she had enjoyed for 3 years in order to get her backpay and holiday pay - all due to Human error - none of which was her fault.

Next trying to protect their business interests is fine- but trying to sort out a complex employment issue with people in india is no joke for anyone and their attitude to staff and customers alike is somewhat heavyhanded.

businesses fail for all sorts of reasons, keeping payroll and Customer service departments in this country is probably NOT a major cause of insolvency in many cases and to imply it is, it rather naive

BillTrac

Not particularly relevant to this post, but a company I worked for until 2007, one of the largest companies in the UK, used a call centre in Mumbai. When one of the call centre staff members called me to discuss a customer, even though I knew why he was calling and I had all the details on my laptop, I could not understand a word. How are people supposed to respond when they receive calls and they have to interpret every word and hope to get the questions/answers correct?

kazzah

Turnover rates - you provide the statistics on this then please. Oh, sorry - I forgot - you are guessing and have no access to the turnover stats for any high street retailer.

errm - why would I be guessing?
in our local store 47 staff have left in 18 months
and I know that for a FACT
I'm siigning off on this topic now- me and my friend are going to enjoy her spending her SUBSTANTIAL damages for her constructive dismissal claim won today
or should I say not won today -
you don't need to win when the company caves in and says
" we didn't handle this well and our employee was forced to leave in order to obtain what was legally hers and for that we apologise inreservedly"

guess I did know something then !!

gtone28

I used to be in the same position Direct debit dates all over the place and always coming out before my money was in the bank. I got into problems being overdrawn all the time until my mum gave a little bit of advice, she used to have the same problems. She told me to open another bank account and get my wages paid into it leaving the DD in the original account, then add up all the DD's over the month then times by 12 and divide by 52 this gives you a weekly amount you need to send to your DD account. I've been doing this for years now with no problems.

I've also had a similar problem with call centres based in india very rude agents demanding details, but I've also had the same problems from call centres in the UK.

missprint

kiddyguy....you sound very young and self-defensive. I for one think the girl was treated shabbily and deserved a decent settlement. Mocking kazzah just makes you look infantile.

dodger1

kinglewis121 wrote: »

"I am interested in how you know that the caller was Asian ... and what relevance this has? "

nobody bother calling him racist he's not and i totally agree asians in call centres can be awfully in your face and disrespectful

Never had a problem with an Asian call centre as far as "in your face" or "disrespect" is concerned. My only problem is understanding what they are saying. It's so frustrating having to continually ask them to repeat themselves.

missprint

Thanks for the telling-off kiddychild. I had actually read the thread from the beginning, and perfectly aware this was a tangential issue. (Tangential, not trolling). Your hectoring tone was what I was objecting to, still do.

unhappyvirgincustomer_2

Please can you let the thread get back on topic please missprint and Kazzah! The only childish posting I can see is from you two.

Kiddyguy is just stating facts from what I have read.

From my own experience of NEXT I have never spoken to anyone who appeared to be based at a call centre outside the UK but I don't work there so I wouldn't know if there were any.

NEXT have never been anything other than extremely professional with extremely high standards of customer care to me.

NEXT have no obligation to change the DD date nor do any other company but I admit the majority do allow you to change it.

It appears this is just a simple case of misunderstanding between the OP's father and the call centre staff member. It in no way should represent the majority of NEXT customers experience of outstanding customer service from one of the best high street and catelogue stores