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Awful Pets at Home customer service
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jamars
Posts: 28 Forumite
Please allow me to have a rant about Pets at Home - and the dire service I recievedfrom them on Friday / Sat.
I don’t like shopping at Pets at Home. Sometimes, needs must and we had to overlook the poor service and inflated prices.
We needed chicken feed - due to an oversight and bad planning on my part we were running rather low - so I hopped online and ordered 2 sacks of layers pellets and 1 sack of corn feed to be delivered to my local store. Brilliant - they would be there the next day the Pets at home website said before I ordered it. Paying £39.50 for chicken feed is a bit pricey, but we were not able to get to our local feed store before we ran out of feed.
I completed the online process, paid via paypal and received my paypal receipt for the goods - but, no email confirmation from Pets at Home - nor was my order showing up in my Pets at Home account.
An hour later, I telephoned Pets at Home customer service to find out if my order had been processed. I spoke to some one called Louise, who seemed proactive and told me that the system had crashed after taking my payment but before the order had been processed. She asked me to send her an email with the details of the order and she would process it manually. Brilliant, email sent and I put the issue to one side, having confidence that Pets at Home customer service would provide . . . customer service.
Alas, a few hours later - I still had not received any email confirmation, Louise had promised that she would email me. Back on the phone to customer service - Louise was busy on another call, but she would phone me back I was told. Did she heck. I waited for the phone call, 4 hours later I got back on the phone to chase her up. This was my third call to Pets at Home to work out if they had processed my order, or just taken my cash. Talk about poor customer service from Pets at home!
This time on the phone, I did manage to get through to Louise, who reassured me that she had processed the order and it was all sorted, no need to worry and that my order would be delivered to my local branch the next day, and that I would receive an email very shortly.
Did this email come? Did it heck - Back on the again for the fourth time, only to be told that Louise had gone home for the day and would be back after the weekend.
This time, I spoke to a customer service agent called Hannah. The information I gathered from Hannah, is that the first Customer Service advisor, Louise, had not sorted out my claim and had not actioned my delivery for the next day. I am sure that you can imagine my frustration that after 4 phone calls, waiting for call backs and emails that never appear, Iam told absolutely nothing has been done.
Upon telling Hannah that I was most disappointed in the level of “customer service”, or lack of that I had received that day - she called me Patronising! Yes, Patronising because I was not happy about the dire service I had received. Hannah took a complete lack of corporate responsibility, not wanting to offer any form of apology for the issue and just passed the blame onto the system crashing and her colleagues not doing their job properly.
After 25 minutes on the phone to her, being insulted and having to give the same details over and over again, she eventually sent me a confirmation email that my chicken feed would be delivered the next day. In all, it had taken me 8 hours of phoning, and waiting from payment to receiving a confirmation email.
I took the details of head office as I did not believe the standard of customer service warranted being called service at all. Hannah, also said that she would email her manager to put her side of the story forward. At least phone calls are recorded so her managers can hear her calling me patronising on several occasions.
Issue resolved - in the process I was left with further distain for Pets at Home. Would I shop there again? No chance. At least my chicken feed would be delivered to the local store the next day. Alas, this was not the last of the problems.
Next day, I was heading out and received an email from Hannah, asking me to call her about my order. Apparently, their systems had crashed again and the delivery could not be processed in the warehouse.
However, considering the issues I had had previously with the poor customer service, systems crashing and frequency of phone calls I had to make, they had put my chicken feed into a taxi to be delivered to my local store. At least I would be able to collect my items. Not only had they hired a taxi, but they had refunded my order so the chicken feed was free, the value of £52
I would like to thank Hannah for eventually offering a good level of customer service and taking a proactive approach to corporate responsibility.
As for the initial customer service advisor - Louise, I can only assume that she was new and under training, or just had no passion or care about her role.
Would I shop at Pets at Home after this experience? Not if I can help it!
I don’t like shopping at Pets at Home. Sometimes, needs must and we had to overlook the poor service and inflated prices.
We needed chicken feed - due to an oversight and bad planning on my part we were running rather low - so I hopped online and ordered 2 sacks of layers pellets and 1 sack of corn feed to be delivered to my local store. Brilliant - they would be there the next day the Pets at home website said before I ordered it. Paying £39.50 for chicken feed is a bit pricey, but we were not able to get to our local feed store before we ran out of feed.
I completed the online process, paid via paypal and received my paypal receipt for the goods - but, no email confirmation from Pets at Home - nor was my order showing up in my Pets at Home account.
An hour later, I telephoned Pets at Home customer service to find out if my order had been processed. I spoke to some one called Louise, who seemed proactive and told me that the system had crashed after taking my payment but before the order had been processed. She asked me to send her an email with the details of the order and she would process it manually. Brilliant, email sent and I put the issue to one side, having confidence that Pets at Home customer service would provide . . . customer service.
Alas, a few hours later - I still had not received any email confirmation, Louise had promised that she would email me. Back on the phone to customer service - Louise was busy on another call, but she would phone me back I was told. Did she heck. I waited for the phone call, 4 hours later I got back on the phone to chase her up. This was my third call to Pets at Home to work out if they had processed my order, or just taken my cash. Talk about poor customer service from Pets at home!
This time on the phone, I did manage to get through to Louise, who reassured me that she had processed the order and it was all sorted, no need to worry and that my order would be delivered to my local branch the next day, and that I would receive an email very shortly.
Did this email come? Did it heck - Back on the again for the fourth time, only to be told that Louise had gone home for the day and would be back after the weekend.
This time, I spoke to a customer service agent called Hannah. The information I gathered from Hannah, is that the first Customer Service advisor, Louise, had not sorted out my claim and had not actioned my delivery for the next day. I am sure that you can imagine my frustration that after 4 phone calls, waiting for call backs and emails that never appear, Iam told absolutely nothing has been done.
Upon telling Hannah that I was most disappointed in the level of “customer service”, or lack of that I had received that day - she called me Patronising! Yes, Patronising because I was not happy about the dire service I had received. Hannah took a complete lack of corporate responsibility, not wanting to offer any form of apology for the issue and just passed the blame onto the system crashing and her colleagues not doing their job properly.
After 25 minutes on the phone to her, being insulted and having to give the same details over and over again, she eventually sent me a confirmation email that my chicken feed would be delivered the next day. In all, it had taken me 8 hours of phoning, and waiting from payment to receiving a confirmation email.
I took the details of head office as I did not believe the standard of customer service warranted being called service at all. Hannah, also said that she would email her manager to put her side of the story forward. At least phone calls are recorded so her managers can hear her calling me patronising on several occasions.
Issue resolved - in the process I was left with further distain for Pets at Home. Would I shop there again? No chance. At least my chicken feed would be delivered to the local store the next day. Alas, this was not the last of the problems.
Next day, I was heading out and received an email from Hannah, asking me to call her about my order. Apparently, their systems had crashed again and the delivery could not be processed in the warehouse.
However, considering the issues I had had previously with the poor customer service, systems crashing and frequency of phone calls I had to make, they had put my chicken feed into a taxi to be delivered to my local store. At least I would be able to collect my items. Not only had they hired a taxi, but they had refunded my order so the chicken feed was free, the value of £52
I would like to thank Hannah for eventually offering a good level of customer service and taking a proactive approach to corporate responsibility.
As for the initial customer service advisor - Louise, I can only assume that she was new and under training, or just had no passion or care about her role.
Would I shop at Pets at Home after this experience? Not if I can help it!
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Comments
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They fullfilled the order in time and gave it to you for free how that is 'awful' I'll never understand. Reading all that I imagine PAH will be delighted you decided to take your custom elsewhere from now on you must have too much time on your hands.0
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The customer service was awful because I had to phone them 5 times in order to get the order number from them, as well as waiting for them to phone back which never happened and waiting for emails not to materilize. Then for the customer service agent to go home for the weekend without doing what she had claimed she had done.
As for taking my custom elsewhere, I do not see why I should stay with a company that offers such a low level of customer service coupled with a high level of rude staff!0 -
Forwandert wrote: »They fullfilled the order in time and gave it to you for free how that is 'awful' I'll never understand. Reading all that I imagine PAH will be delighted you decided to take your custom elsewhere from now on you must have too much time on your hands.
Either you didn't read or fully understand the opening post or you are one of these people that simply likes to belittle others. (And from the tone of your post, I would go with the second option).
How can you honestly say that having to constantly phone a company, not getting those calls returned as promised and not getting e-mails as promised is good customer service?0 -
A computer crashing can be a nightmare with online orders, and not everyone will know how to deal with it. Stressful for staff.
Don't forget that they were no doubt dealing with lots of orders which had been subjected to the same problem. The easiest option would probably have been to refund your order.
They certainly should not have been rude though.
Ultimately, despite the computer problems, they went to extra lengths to make sure your items were delivered. i think this is rather good customer service, so your title is a little unfair, as you did get a good outcome.Should've = Should HAVE (not 'of')
Would've = Would HAVE (not 'of')
No, I am not perfect, but yes I do judge people on their use of basic English language. If you didn't know the above, then learn it! (If English is your second language, then you are forgiven!)0 -
OP does come across as patronising ...0
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And you come across as a thoroughly unpleasant individual who seems to live to post critically about others at every opportunity.
There must be some terrible bitterness in your life if you feel the need to boost your ego in that way so often.
Are you having a bad day old chap? Nothing bitter in my comment, just stating a fact - the OP comes across as patronising
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Agree OP, rubbish service and that is a total rip off for layers pellets! I got caught short once and drove up to the local Countrywide. Paid over the odds and then the bloomin' birds refused to eat it!
I have now found a local family company and they drop off my order into the garage each week, lock it up and post the invoice through the door.
I have heard lots of complaints about Pets at Home.0 -
A computer crashing can be a nightmare with online orders, and not everyone will know how to deal with it. Stressful for staff.
Don't forget that they were no doubt dealing with lots of orders which had been subjected to the same problem. The easiest option would probably have been to refund your order.
They certainly should not have been rude though.
Ultimately, despite the computer problems, they went to extra lengths to make sure your items were delivered. i think this is rather good customer service, so your title is a little unfair, as you did get a good outcome.
Yea, I agree with this.
Sounds like you may have gotten a rogue agent on the first call. You unfortunately have to chase it up at times, as not all agents are good at their jobs.
As for the second agent, by virtue of them going to great lengths to get your chicken feed delivered (by taxi?!) and giving you it for free is immensely kind. THE ONLY thing I'm going to say is that you should put yourself in the shoes of the second agent.... It sounds like she's competent, and it must really !!!! her off if her colleagues aren't doing their job properly and she ends up having to mop up after others; dealing with irate customers like yourself. Given the extent to which the second agent has seemingly helped you, I would not want to put in a bad word against them! EVEN IF she called you patronising, which is probably true!! Her actions speak louder than words.
In fact, things in life go wrong from time to time (systems crash, you have to deal with incompetent people) and dare I be so bold as to say that much of your anger has the root cause of you not planning your chicken feed stockpile good enough (leaving it to run down to a level whereby you needed it within 1 working day is silly planning). I think you know that, though! By virtue of your poor planning and a stroke of luck you have just gotten a free stash of chicken feed!! Can't see how you can complain about that in all honesty, but hey ho!0 -
and dare I be so bold as to say that much of your anger has the root cause of you not planning your chicken feed stockpile good enough (leaving it to run down to a level whereby you needed it within 1 working day is silly planning). I think you know that,
Of course they know that which is precisely why they admitted this in the opening post!due to an oversight and bad planning on my part we were running rather low0 -
George_Michael wrote: »Of course they know that which is precisely why they admitted this in the opening post!
And to quote my own post, with some annotation:daytona0 wrote:
I think you know that, though! [because you acknowledged it in your original post]0
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