Marks & Sepncer complaint - how

andyrules

I often eat at M&S as I like the food, but almost always end up having to wipe my own table! This clearly highlights the woeful understaffing, and it's time M&S sorted it! I generally find the staff pleasant and helpful so am not blaming them; however, I do think JoJo was out of order suggesting her customer takes his custom elsewhere! As for the customer 'lurking', yes, sometimes it's difficult to find somewhere to sit and eat.

OP, was it the Marble Arch store? I was there last week and it seemed there were about 3 members of staff running the whole show!

uktim29

bluejake wrote: »

Unfortunately, this attitude is common when it comes to customer service in the UK. Is it really unreasonable to expect a place where you are paying to consume food to be clean and hygienic? Not saying it is personally your fault, but your attitude that it is somehow the customer who is wrong to expect a clean table in a restaurant every time he visits without having to ask, which pretty much sums up UK customer service. Unfortunately, over here the customer is seen as a nuisance rather than the fellow paying all the bills. Different elsewhere of course.

You have missed the point. The reason a table may be dirty is not "an attitude to customer service" (as you were referring directly to a member of staffs point of view, not the companies management, and I don't mean local management). This is caused by profit driven companies which root cause goes back to the shareholders.

Your response is typical assuming it's a local customer service attitude, meaning the staff employed rather than having an understanding of what they can actually achieve when being short staffed or working in a fast paced (which is really just a corporate word for not enough staff) environment.

Yes you might expect a clean table but your barking up the wrong tree blaming the staffs attitude, they are simply pointing out the truth/fact.

It seems to be a typical customer attitude now to accuse staff of having a bad attitude when all their point of view/response was is an awareness of the circumstances their in.

Why is it people with this point of view by default always suggest the grass is better on the other side as well?

bluejake wrote: »

Different elsewhere of course.

JoJoB

To be honest, I usually find customer service is pretty good wherever I go, whether it's a posh restaurant or a greasy spoon cafe. I've met with belligerent service maybe once in my life and their atttitude really threw me - just as the attitude of some customers will really throw me now. I have absolutely no objection to customers taking issues with either the length of time it takes to queue, coffee not being up to scratch, tables not being clean, and always suggest they take their complaints to management so that they become aware of how short-staffing is affecting the customers.

What I object to is a particular personality (and this can apply to customer or staff) which is one that is generally dissatisfied with life and will use any opportunity in their day to subsume themselves in this pit of bitterness. I avoid people like this in my own life for they are somewhat sapping on the spirit, and generally grit my teeth and smile when I meet them in a customer service capacity. I suggested an alternative coffee place to one customer because he was clearly unhappy with ours - for some fair reasons that we could change (ie having more staff, having more tables), but also for reasons that were utterly poisonous (ie the pregnant staff being fat and slow).

Good customer service means being polite to the customer at all times, even in times of stress when they are clearly being rude and wrong. Perhaps it was wrong and unprofessional of me to allow my human side to come out - but then I AM a human, dealing with another human, and not a customer service robot. IMO there has to be give and take on both sides.

JoJoB

andyrules wrote: »

OP, was it the Marble Arch store? I was there last week and it seemed there were about 3 members of staff running the whole show!

This is not an uncommon scenario. Revive is the cinders of the m&S set-up, it gets overlooked when short-staffed and sometimes it is difficult to get other staff to come over from other departments. Other departments will send temp staff over, or staff who are a bit unsatisfactory to get rid of them for a couple of hours, people who don't know how to use the till or make coffee, so they are put to work clearing tables and loading the dishwasher (which they can be painfully slow about).

The full-time revive staff run a very tight ship, they are generally very efficient and on top of things because they have to be. Things fall apart very quickly in a fast-paced set up and being slow or not doing your job properly causes stress for everyone in the team and leads to customer complaints building up. But unfortunately they have to "make do" a lot of the time and the place ends up being run a lot less smoothly than they would like. It is a shame, because a Revive with fully trained staff runs like clockwork - and after decades of various jobs in food establishments (with all the horrors you see) it is certainly the place most concerned with hygiene practices. It is the cleanest and most efficient in terms of food hygiene and preparation procedures. A few more staff and they'll be on top of the table situation too!

maypole

We have just been to Cafe Revive in Newcastle, had a nice cup of tea and a toastie sandwich. However the wall next to our table was absolutely filthy with stains which looked like splashes of some sort of drink. The staff were quick to come and clear the table next to us after someone left.

mrbnewc1

I went to the new M&S food place in Newcastle yesterday...not sure what it's called, but just opened next door.

The girl on the till was extremely rude, which was commented on by other customers also. I would have understood if it was busy, but it wasn't.

Won't be going back there again.