ARGOS - CURRYS - VIRGIN: How *NOT* to do e-business

QuackQuack_2

ARGOS - CURRYS - VIRGIN: How *NOT* to do e-business

Let me tell you a tale.........

I like to be careful with money, and I love the convenience of shopping on line. It saves money in fuel, it saves time and it spares the environment unnecessary trips. Online shopping is nothing new - it's been with us for ages - but bit household names are still making a bit of a hash of it - even Internet Service Providers.............

We are in the process of moving into a new apartment and need a couple of bits an pieces. A new cooker, and to set up some internet access and cable TV (not allowed a dish).

First port of call was Argos for a New World Cooker 489/6605. Odd taste, perhaps, but we like it especially as it comes with a code (COOKDISC) for 10% off (ONLY AVAILABLE TO ONLINE PURCHASES - NOT INSTORE) AND with delivery, installation and recycling included in the price ..... or so it says ......


So imagine my surprise when I come to the check out and it adds £8.95 for 'standard delivery'

No matter what you do, you cannot get rid of this charge - so I called up Argos on their customer services number: 0845 6402020 opt3, opt1 at 8:03. Initially I was greeted with voicemail telling me their opening hours were '8 am to 8 pm'. I assumed they were on NHS doctors receptionist 'cup of tea and a fag' time (8am = 8:08am, 8pm = 7.52pm) and called a few minutes later. What did I expect to achieve? Well I thought they would be able, in some way, to flag this or even correct it. Instead I was told "If you order it, we will refund it if you call us back." Now don't get me wrong - it's sort of a solution. Long term you won't be out of pocket, but really - in this day and age, is that the best they could do? I asked "If I give you the catalogue number, can you get it changed or updated?". Answer "No, all I can do is check stock." I then asked, "How do I get this changed?" Answer: "You can write in or email." Mmmm.

Not overly impressed I thought I would try Currys instead - much that I don't like DSG much. It stems from when they always kept on and on and on about taking out 'cover' (extended warranties) on everything, and pounced on you the minute you entered the store. Naturally, shopping online stops all of this. Looking at it, the £8.95 delivery fee Argos were applying to the price (even with the 10% off) made them about £2 more expensive on the same appliance at Currys (I know, I checked earlier in the week). To be fair to Currys, they also allowed you to pick the delivery/install slot on their website. So I thought, "I'll go with Currys!" .... So I type the URL into my browser and.....



Having tried a few times I thought "OK, so they don't want my money.... I'll kill some time arranging my broadband and cable TV through Virgin." The block of 100 Apartments (or in English 'flats', I was trying to sound posh...) is covered in NTL/Virgin cables and junction boxes and the place has so many Virgin customers it has two cabinets feeding it. I popped to the Virgin website thinking, "This should be a breeze, I'll just enter my postcode and I can at least sort that out!". So I put my postcode in and....



I'm not in a cable area????!!!! Nearly everyone here has cable!!!! So I call customer services, supplying same postcode and get "Yes, that's fully cabled for all services." I ask, "Why does your website say that it is not?". Answer: "I have no idea." and that about sums up all three of them.

Argos: Get your prices sorted out - how hard can it be? You've updated the appliance to read "Free delivery" - sort it out so it does not charge for delivery.

Currys: Do your maintenance overnight, and do it quickly. Give better information such as when you expect it to be back up again. Even MSE do this!!!! If your 'maintenance' window drifts into the time that people are getting up, you are potentially losing thousands of pounds in sales.

Virgin: How many people buy Sky instead because the website postcode checker had the *wrong* information? This is really basic and comes down to poor data policies. It's really unbelievable for an ISP!

Sure, I'm a bit fussy. I expect online stores to work properly. I expect them to be available at reasonable times, and I expect big companies to get it right - or at least have a system in place to put it right!

Techhead_2

I may be missing something but the Argos screenshot doesn't show a delivery charge, just the item price.

Also, the Virgin screenshot doesn't say you aren't in a cabled area. It says you aren't in one of their fibre optic areas (you'll get standard cable)

shellsuit

Techhead wrote: »

I may be missing something but the Argos screenshot doesn't show a delivery charge, just the item price. Under the blue BUY button, it says £8.95 standard delivery charge.

Also, the Virgin screenshot doesn't say you aren't in a cabled area. It says you aren't in one of their fibre optic areas (you'll get standard cable)

It says you are not in a fibre optic cable area.

tahrey

Personally I wouldn't go with Virgin unless I was quite a lot more flush and had time to burn anyway... if you're a long term customer they treat you alright and you can get half decent deals, but their new customer deals look like a license to burn money; get a cheaper broadband provider, find an old cheap laptop on ebay to hook up to your TV, and have it download streaming movies/iplayer/etc (overnight if you're on something like plusnet). Also, you're likely to get serviced by the newer departments, who according to my man formerly on the inside are a properly incompetent and uncaring shower of whatsits (he finally left after having enough of them screwing him over - ultimately, coming back off an extended 6 week holiday to find his job pretty much didn't exist any more, unless he was happy to sit for another few weeks on no pay and no dole for the temp they'd put in his place to leave; this mismanagement also extended to the customer experience in a lot of stories)

Note well that Currys and Argos are part of the same (Dixons) group... at least, as far as I'm aware. I don't buy much off either online if I can help it. I may occasionally drop into one of their high street stores or order a delivery-only item over the phone, out of the catalogue, for my nan. Oddly, PC World isn't *quite* so bad, despite being part of the same group, but I'd still recommend either going into the stores in person, or - and this I assure you is an unpaid testimonial - "walking over the road" to Comet, whose prices and customer service I always find... well, if not brilliant, then at least perfectly satisfactory, and their website tends to work well enough to give you an accurate idea of the price and to let you order things, although searching for them can be a pain. You can even use online voucher codes in-store (to avoid delivery charges) if you pre-book the item.
(though be aware they are one of the bunch who like to jack prices up to ludicrous, no-sensible-person-would-ever-pay-that levels on otherwise innoccuous items in order to then sell them at a normal price as "50% off" etc)

vyle

Virgin keeps dropping leaflets in my postcode area telling me that my area is NOW has fibre optic. We don't, and we never will.

They really are a bunch of prunes.

redped

tahrey wrote: »

Note well that Currys and Argos are part of the same group... at least, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm afraid you're wrong - Argos is part of Home Retail Group, whilst Currys is part of Dixons Retail (formally DSG).

antrobus

tahrey wrote: »

Note well that Currys and Argos are part of the same group... at least, as far as I'm concerned.

Well they might be as far as you're concerned. However, as far as the rest of the world is concerned Argos is owned by the Home Retail Group (HRG) and Currys is owned by the Dixons Stores Group (DSG) and are thus two quite different companies, both of whom would likely be equally annoyed that anyone thought that one was owned by the other.

Edit: Or what the previous chap said.:)

ThumbRemote

Techhead wrote: »

I may be missing something but the Argos screenshot doesn't show a delivery charge, just the item price.

There is definitely a delivery charge shown on the checkout page

Mk14:37

I understand your frustrations, but not your expectation that a call centre monkey could effect a change to the website. ;-)

Esqui

If this was over the weekend recently, all our websites were down unexpectedly. Someone tripped over a plug or something*

*I'm sure there was an actual reason for this.

Techhead_2

shellsuit wrote: »

It says you are not in a fibre optic cable area.

That's entirely my point, not in a fibre optic cable area doesn't mean not in a cable area at all. (Traditional cable isn't fibre optic)