Viking Direct Offers. including 10 reams of paper for 90p, sellotape for £3 [CLOSED]

tonyg_2

dadada wrote:

Some of you may have missed this from Martin's Blog.

I actually am an existing business customer. I could not be arsed wasting time and effort for "something for nothing" but when I have used them in the past it has been fun to get something.

Shame how some MSEers have behaved. I wonder what effect it will have for us regular customers.

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" ...... I thought the following e-mail debate was interesting. I received this e-mail from the MD of Viking Direct, Richard Carvell. Many times people from this site have gone to get freebie intro offers from Viking and its been in the tip.

HIS EMAIL (I have his permission to publish it)

Dear Mr Lewis,

I thought I should write as your site has been giving my business a lot of publicity in the last few days. Some of it, to be honest, less welcome but beggars can’t be choosers. I quite like your site, your philosophy and, as a consumer myself, value your advice. On the downside its causing me one or two problems at the moment!

Yes, we have promotions and freebies to encourage new customers and reward loyal customers. Yes, sometimes I’m very trusting and don’t put restrictive conditions on the offers. Sure I know some people will take the !!!!!! and cherry pick the very cheapest items but it will be a small proportion of all those that take up the offer and I will win many more genuine customers. Unfortunately for me the forums such as your own have changed the dynamics of these offers and the proportion of freeloaders who will never buy again
has reached untenable proportions. So I’ll be adopting the restrictive conditions for future
promos: shame but that’s life. It is not your fault.

Neither do I blame you or MSE for the fact my real customers can’t get through - that’s my lookout too - silly me for having a freephone number andan introductory offer that was open to a very liberal interpretation of ‘new customer’.

However I do have a problem with my staff being abused by MSE readers demanding their ‘right’ to free stuff in the most extreme terms. I have people in tears tonight. Sod the thousands of pounds we’ve given away to people who are not interested in us: what bothers me is my people are in the firing line.

I appluad you for contributing to a society that is demanding as consumers insisting on best and fair value each time. I question whether we want to create a society of vultures out to get something for nothing and then ready to abuse those who don’t go along.

Best regards
Rich.

Rich

I think it is appalling if people phone up and sound aggressive on the phone - there is no excuse for this ever. Even less excuse for causing your Customer Service Representatives (CSR's) to end up in tears. As a member of MSE I apologise if people from this site have acted in that way.

However in my view the situation is clear. The problem lies with Viking. It's totally simple - the fact is that if anyone phoned up requesting the offer it should be totally clear whether they meet the crieria or not. If they do, they should get the goods; if they don't meet the crieria, then they shouldn't. What could be simpler.

The fact is that differnt CSR's were treating different customers in a different way. This was the fundamental problem, and hence why Viking must accept responsibility at the end of the day. Even the CSR that I spoke to said that there were new (temporary?) CSR's that were allowing customers to order these items whilst others weren't.

Given this, then I can understand that some potential customers would feel angry if the were not allowed the offer, whilst others were. Some people on this site have been told by Viking that they were "abusing" the Viking system and there was an internal email at Viking highlighting this. Rubbish - no-one here is abusing your system - the fact is that someone is either entitled to such an offer or is not entitled to it and Viking need to be consistent with this.

To re-iterate, there is no excuse for abusive behaviour by any caller. But at the end of the day my personal view is that the real responsibility lies with the lack of consistency in which Viking have treated people ie this is an important training issue for your organisation.

Tx

Saint_Chris

I was not at any point abusive towards the member of staff who i was talking to.
I asked for an explination as to why my order was cancelled, and their reason was 'it is not geninine' how is that for customer services.

I have used viking in the past. I got my daughter/husband to stay in on tue, but my order which i had placed did not arrive.
After being told that i had 'not place a geninine order' i then asked for my name to be removed from their mailing list. Which i have every right to do. I asked for my account to be closed. which i have every right to do. I asked for the name of the person who i was speaking to. Something which i always do no matter who i speak to from whatever company. Which is a good piece of advice.

I was not in any way abusive towards the member of staff that i spoke to. But i was firm in the fact that viking were wrong to take my order on the friday.
And i should have been told when i gave my order in that i was not gonna get it.

I was entitled to my order as others were. And i will be told by nobody that i was 'not genunine' i think that maybe had it been somebody else. Then there conversation with the member of customer services might have been bad.

Mine wasn't

tonyg_2

Saint_Chris wrote:

I was not at any point abusive towards the member of staff who i was talking to.
I asked for an explination as to why my order was cancelled, and their reason was 'it is not geninine' how is that for customer services.

I have used viking in the past. I got my daughter/husband to stay in on tue, but my order which i had placed did not arrive.
After being told that i had 'not place a geninine order' i then asked for my name to be removed from their mailing list. Which i have every right to do. I asked for my account to be closed. which i have every right to do. I asked for the name of the person who i was speaking to. Something which i always do no matter who i speak to from whatever company. Which is a good piece of advice.

I was not in any way abusive towards the member of staff that i spoke to. But i was firm in the fact that viking were wrong to take my order on the friday.
And i should have been told when i gave my order in that i was not gonna get it.

I was entitled to my order as others were. And i will be told by nobody that i was 'not genunine' i think that maybe had it been somebody else. Then there conversation with the member of customer services might have been bad.

Mine wasn't

Yes, I agree, you have been treated very badly by Viking. They are using these terms like "not genuine" and "trying to abuse the system" when the problem lies with their lack of consistency. Their Customer Service Reps are trying the best they can, and have got some great reviews here - the problem lies much deeper at Viking in terms of their training.