M&S - what happened to their legendary service?

skintchick

I bought a pair of sandals a few weeks ago from M&S in Kings road, London. Last Monday night the heel of one snapped totally in half as i walked downt eh street! Sadly it was at the beginning of my commute home so I had to walk on tip toes to the tube, stand on top toes ont eh tube, and while walking through Paddington to my train.

I'm v busy at work so it wasn;t till this Monday I was able to take them back. The girl called another one over, they looked at it and the second one said "I'm not being funny, but this looks like you did something to it."

Yes. That's right. I took the sandals that I really love, and broke the heel deliberately so I could walk home on tip toe, and I'm coming in asking for a replacement NOT a refudn cos I love them so much, because, hey! I just like breaking my own shoes!!

I remained calm and asked to exchange, but they weren;t selling them in that store, so i had to go to another woman who said a few stores up north had them still.

Good, I say, Order me a pair and I;ll swap them.

Oh no, she replies. We don;t do that. You have to go to the store and do it yourslef.

Yeah, right.

I go back to work and call head office. At first, they offer to give me a number of stores' numbers so I can call them all myself to establish of they have a replacement pair for me.

No, I said. you do it. That's what the service bit of customer service is all about.

So she does, and I get put through, and I order a new pair which I have to pay for on cc, PLUS POSTAGE.

So now I have a new pair and have taken the old pair BACK to Kings Road for a refund BUT I now need to write and get the £3.50 postage refunded.

I can;t belive they epxected me to do it all myself!! It's appalling service when their shoddy sandals broke while I was walking along.

Since when were M&S so sh1te? I haven;t shopped there for years and I don;t think they need worry about me going back.

Astaroth

Namely, they used to give great service/ had very lax policies and then they almost went bust. Customers were either not prepared to pay the extra for the service or were abusing the policies. Therefore cut the service and you have immediate cost savings.

phil_c_2

Astaroth wrote:

Namely, they used to give great service/ had very lax policies and then they almost went bust. Customers were either not prepared to pay the extra for the service or were abusing the policies. Therefore cut the service and you have immediate cost savings.

Quite a few points to pick up on here. Firstly, as a company, we did not nearly go bust. Secondly, we know that people are prepaed to pay extra for good service, hence the fact that we concentrate on 'product,' 'service,' and ' environment.' Im sure anyone who works for M&S will have heard those buzz words before. As was reported in the press a few months back we paid millions to have thousands of staff members trained by a 'customer service guru.' This level of investment is still being maintained and rolled out in stores with new employess and initiatives such as 'great service awards' have been introduced to reward employess. To ensure that this work does go in vain all stores in the business are now visited by mystery shoppers twice, yes twice a month.

However, as to not criticise the above post fully, there is a good point in there. Some policies were being abused. One example that springs to mind is someone returning an item that we stopped selling 7 years ago. Obviously they got a refund as at the time we had no restrictions on when goods could be returned. Now, this has changed to 90 days - still the market leader when compared to our main competitors.

Looks as though the original poster experienced something which does not happen often.

Twopints

phil_c wrote:

<snip> As was reported in the press a few months back we paid millions to have thousands of staff members trained by a 'customer service guru.' <snip>

Looks as though the original poster experienced something which does not happen often.

So the OP was just unlucky to encounter all 4 people that had not been trained by the CS guru? Or, more likely, this happens more often than you would like to have us believe.

Astaroth

phil_c wrote:

Quite a few points to pick up on here. Firstly, as a company, we did not nearly go bust. Secondly, we know that people are prepaed to pay extra for good service, hence the fact that we concentrate on 'product,' 'service,' and ' environment.' Im sure anyone who works for M&S will have heard those buzz words before. As was reported in the press a few months back we paid millions to have thousands of staff members trained by a 'customer service guru.' This level of investment is still being maintained and rolled out in stores with new employess and initiatives such as 'great service awards' have been introduced to reward employess. To ensure that this work does go in vain all stores in the business are now visited by mystery shoppers twice, yes twice a month.

However, as to not criticise the above post fully, there is a good point in there. Some policies were being abused. One example that springs to mind is someone returning an item that we stopped selling 7 years ago. Obviously they got a refund as at the time we had no restrictions on when goods could be returned. Now, this has changed to 90 days - still the market leader when compared to our main competitors.

Looks as though the original poster experienced something which does not happen often.

The going bust was an exageration... replace that with the more accurate, were suffering very large losses particularly from the clothing aspect of the business. Strip out the financial services and food section and as a stand alone business the original statement would certainly have been true.

I can only go by what Anthony Thompson said at a conference I was at with him. Now if he is incorrect then I am sure you can correct him on what the company policy/ basis for decision have been/ are.

Any policy which provides more for the customer is going to be abused by some customers. It is always possible to increase prices sufficiently so that the majority can continue to enjoy the benefits of such policies without the bottom line being hit by the minority who do abuse it. The withdrawl of such policies with or without the associated reduction in prices clearly shows that service has been reduced as a priority. This is not to say that M&S does not still value service nor that this automatically means that they are no longer good at customer service but simply that it is no longer the priority that it used to be. If there was a true belief that service was everything and customers are willing to pay for that then rather than remove policies that are abused you would increase prices to cover the losses from abuse.

skintchick

Twopints wrote:

So the OP was just unlucky to encounter all 4 people that had not been trained by the CS guru? Or, more likely, this happens more often than you would like to have us believe.

Eaxactly! one rubbish person i can forgive, but four of them? Come on, that's poor. If the policy is as I have experienced it then it's a poor policy.

Why on earth can't they order a pair to be moved from one store to another when an item has broken? Surely the ship stuff around all the time?

AND it was only posted normal post, not even bozed just shoved in a plastic posting bag, so it did not cost them the £3.50 i was charged!!

rogue_element

As far as I know, policy IS to order stuff in from other stores (Can be done withing 48 hours), so I dont see why there would be a problem there. We were taught at the CS Seminar where there was a v.similar example, to give the customer the BOD. Its unlikely that you would purposely remove the heel from the shoes or break it. The price of the shoes is definitely less than the price of loosing a customer. I am also not entirely impressed with the attitude of head office either.

I think you should definitely write to head office, also the store in question (the store manager) and if you can remember who dealt with you (look on your receipt - get the employee number - its next to the time at the bottom), then the member of staff in question can be talked to.

Hope this helps and I really do think you should try M&S again.

skintchick

Thanks - I'll write and see what reply I get, because I really do think it was poor service.

The replacement shoes are bearing up well so far though