Currys Pay & Collect - Advice Please

Goodvibes360

Much as I accept the fact that human error can and will happen, there is still no excuse for poor service and / or dishonesty. It is acceptance of these attributes that will continue to contibute to lack of satisfaction by the end user (ie - we, the customers).

shaun_from_Africa

Goodvibes360 wrote: »

Much as I accept the fact that human error can and will happen.

So you are willing to accept that human error can happen, yet when I mentioned that the problem could have been caused by typing or computer error, your reply was:

Either way, there's some dishonesty going on

If it was human error, where is the dishonesty?

shaun_from_Africa

Goodvibes360 wrote: »

Thanks - you've earnt your commission from Currys.

As expected, the old "you must work for PC World / John Lewis / Currys" post that people with nothing further to add fall back on.

I'm just surprised that it took so long for you to bring it up.

Truepat

Goodvibes360 wrote: »

Thanks - you've earnt your commission from Currys. My complaint is about service (or lack thereof) and dishonesty. I know that my options are currently limited - but it's accepting these situations that lets the big organisations continue to mistreat their customers. I work in a service industry, and if we treated our clients like this, there would be no business. There is no excuse for poor service / communication.

I had some sympathy with you up until this post., but I agree with the poster that said you left it to the last minute, that does not mean I work for Currys nor does it mean they give me commission or any other stupid statement about affiliation.

The service was not the best but it definitely does not mean there was any dishonesty - that is where you started making things up, it is more likely to be just an honest mistake.

I often see claims about "I work in the service industry and if we treated our clients like that..." - so your company has never had an unhappy customer? If your customer satisfaction is not 100% then you do treat your customers like that. We pride ourselves on our customer service but I have twice seen someone vent about one of my companies on the internet (and on investigation both stories were full of halve truths and much of the detail was in what was not mentioned, so I always take these tales of disaster and woe with a pinch of salt).

I am sure nobody ever intends to treat a customer badly, but there are some things that are totally out of the control of the staff, that does not mean bad service, it just means that they could not provide the service they would have liked to.

As I often say, it is not IF something goes wrong, it is how it is handled when it does go wrong - and often both sides are found lacking.

Goodvibes360

Truepat wrote: »

I had some sympathy with you up until this post., but I agree with the poster that said you left it to the last minute, that does not mean I work for Currys nor does it mean they give me commission or any other stupid statement about affiliation.

The service was not the best but it definitely does not mean there was any dishonesty - that is where you started making things up, it is more likely to be just an honest mistake.

I often see claims about "I work in the service industry and if we treated our clients like that..." - so your company has never had an unhappy customer? If your customer satisfaction is not 100% then you do treat your customers like that. We pride ourselves on our customer service but I have twice seen someone vent about one of my companies on the internet (and on investigation both stories were full of halve truths and much of the detail was in what was not mentioned, so I always take these tales of disaster and woe with a pinch of salt).

I am sure nobody ever intends to treat a customer badly, but there are some things that are totally out of the control of the staff, that does not mean bad service, it just means that they could not provide the service they would have liked to.

As I often say, it is not IF something goes wrong, it is how it is handled when it does go wrong - and often both sides are found lacking.

OK - so bear with me here:-

Firstly, I was told that the goods would be delivered on the given date - that has turned out to be untrue. This could be construed as either an error or failure.

Secondly, I had Currys customer services telling me that the goods had been delivered, but the store telling me otherwise. This can be construed as poor information or incompetence.

Thirdly, the delivery was clearly not checked by the branch staff - this has got to be lack of process and / or incompetence.

Forthly, why does Customer Services assure me that they will call me back - but never do? Lack of process / incompetence / lack of care?

Lastly, if I look up this item on the Currys website, you are STILL being given the chance to add it to basket, and select a pay & collect store before being informed that it is unavailable. Why does it simply not say on the product page that it is out of stock? Surely this is incompetence.

Yes, we all make errors - but it is how the errors are corrected that makes the difference between good & poor service. In my industry, which is often time critical, we would be expected to correct the error at our cost in order to meet the given timescale - and I dont think that this is an unreasonable requst to make of Currys.

The circumstances of when I could order the product were beyond my control - so whilst I can agree with most people on how late it was left, this was not something that I could do anything about, and I would reiterate that I placed the order with Currys because they gave an assurance that the product could be delivered in time.

I'm not looking for an argument - but if all the respondents to this post are representative of the UK opinion, it's no wonder that we have such poor service in this country.

Goodvibes360

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

So you are willing to accept that human error can happen, yet when I mentioned that the problem could have been caused by typing or computer error, your reply was:



If it was human error, where is the dishonesty?

The dishonesty arises from the statement that the goods were placed on the vehicle, but never arrived at store - so either the statement is dishonest, or someone from the delivery company or store is being dishonest - is that not obvious?

jonnyd281

Goodvibes360 wrote: »

The dishonesty arises from the statement that the goods were placed on the vehicle, but never arrived at store - so either the statement is dishonest, or someone from the delivery company or store is being dishonest - is that not obvious?

Or they made a mistake and thought it was placed on the vehicle, or was delivered to the wrong store, or was left on the vehicle, doesn't mean they are being dishonest, if the information in front of them is that it was on the vehicle then that is all the info they have to work with do you expect them to make something up?
I have worked with supply chains on international level, and when something like this happens it can take days to find out where a package is and why it isn't on the transport you thought it was, and sometimes you never do find them. In the mean time all the paper work says that it's on such and such flight/truck/ship.
I don't think it will help your case with currys calling its staff liars.

Goodvibes360

jonnyd281 wrote: »

Or they made a mistake and thought it was placed on the vehicle, or was delivered to the wrong store, or was left on the vehicle, doesn't mean they are being dishonest, if the information in front of them is that it was on the vehicle then that is all the info they have to work with do you expect them to make something up?
I have worked with supply chains on international level, and when something like this happens it can take days to find out where a package is and why it isn't on the transport you thought it was, and sometimes you never do find them. In the mean time all the paper work says that it's on such and such flight/truck/ship.
I don't think it will help your case with currys calling its staff liars.

Whilst not wanting to repeat myself, surely the lack of process in checking the delivery is the failure. Had this been completed correctly, it would have been ascertained before the delivery vehicle had left the branch that the goods were still on truck / not on truck / etc etc and something could have been instigated there and then. Instead, it's taken failure at point collection to discover the issue, by which time it's too late. And whilst it may have been simple human error, my experience is that multiple versions of the same event are usually surrounded by a lack of truth.

dodger1

One lesson from this is don't leave it so late to get a christmas present. Unfortunately things do go wrong sometimes and we get let down.

Truepat

Goodvibes360 wrote: »

I'm not looking for an argument - but if all the respondents to this post are representative of the UK opinion, it's no wonder that we have such poor service in this country.

I would say that in general, and compared to other areas of the world, customer service in the UK is good-to-excellent - but some peoples expectations are maybe set a bit high. Some days though things just do not work out the way we would have preferred them to.

People are getting more and more impatient. It used to be 28 days delivery for everything now people expect things to be on their doorstep within hours of ordering. This surprisingly does work in the majority of cases, but at a very busy time of year you have to expect that things can (and will) go wrong.

We assume computers are always right but they are only as good as the data that they contain, stock discrepancies do occur; things get put on the wrong truck; things get addressed incorrectly; most of the time they are just honest mistakes and while they are annoying there are worse things in life!