The Adversarial Consumer Society In Practice - Who's side are you on? Blog Discussion

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  • bs7
    bs7 Posts: 774 Forumite
    biglugs wrote:
    I love MSE but am often dismayed by the amount of people who talk of creating new email addresses in order to get "new customer" discounts
    People do this for a very good reason - because they can, and because companies want us to! Companies like to think they are setting up really clever promotions, and Sales Directors like to report to the board that they have signed up millions of "new" customers. We know, and the Sales directors know, that this is a load of rubbish and what they've done is sign up the same customers millions of times!

    Indeed!
    Plus, the loyal customer who uses them time and time again gets nothing. So why not just resign up again. As biglugs suggests - they know about it perfectly well but they choose to ignore it.

    It's simply a balance they have to make between having some sort of loyalty scheme and rewarding existing customers or giving all the freebies to new customers.
  • I think any money Viking has lost out on through naughty MSE'er's has probably been regained through the advertising it gets through MSE. This thread has been viewed over 1500 times and it probably took the guy 10 minutes to rattle off the letter to Martin. Clever guy!
  • jb84344
    jb84344 Posts: 85
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    Forumite
    I've read through this entire thread with interest and agree with what most people appear to be saying.

    Mr. Cavell seems saddened by the abuse his staff have unfairly received (and quite rightly so) and resigned to the fact that there will always be people who take the p1ss (a fair word to use IMHO).

    I really respect Mr. Cavell for the mail he sent to Martin and am pleased that most people who have posted on this thread seem to agree with most points and are unhappy at the occasional lengths people go to, to get freebies/greedies.

    I always feel that if freebies or offers are abused too much, in the long term all that will happen is the end cost of everything goes up (and they'll be less offers in the future) - lets hope not!

    jb
    4oz rice crispies, 4oz butter, 4 mars bars.
    Melt, mix, cool, eat. Yummy! ;)
  • pjala
    pjala Posts: 420
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    Call centre staff deal with abuse everyday, aimed at the company not the person usually - and are usually trained to deal with that abuse. Usually the abuse is the companies fault who make mistakes, or take the customers for idiots. A good way to get through to the call centre if you are getting up against a brick wall, is to ask to speak to their supervisor. Many times have I asked this, been told the supervisor would not be able to change things, and the supervisor HAS changed something.

    It seems to me that Mr Cavell is having a go, because he is upset that his "offers" got found wanting. I actually thought that he was abusive, in a slightly bullying tone. I also think his business model of freebies was obviously wrong, hence quick witted consumers took advantage of this.

    A simple "would MSE'ers please refrain from being abusive to my staff, as we are doing our best to supply goods, but the volume of requests has been overwhelming" would have been fine.

    I agree with Martin, ALL companies are there to make money, not provide service, not look after your interests. It is actually illegal (someone please back me up on this!) for companies registered on the stock market to promote anything else other than their own self interest - although this gets twisted to make it look like they are doing you a favour sometimes.

    An example would be Tesco, a lot of people used the GIB 150 points offer, to buy beef, then give it to the local hostel. Now this surely is good, both for homeless people and for the consumer. If Tesco had said no bulk buy, but we will donate a proportion of the food to the local hostel ourselves - then great! But I guess their policies prevent them from this selfless attitude - hence they closed down most bulk buys.
  • Mr Carvell is a very clever man. He is the managing director of a successul company. Phrases like "sometimes I'm too trusting" and "silly me" are sheer manipulation on his part - while he may be regretting his 'generosity', (an offer which he can presumably withdraw at any time if it is becoming too expensive) the whole episode has increased his public exposure massively and his email to Martin is, imho, all part of that hype. After all, we are all here discussing it! I for one wasn't particualrly aware of Viking and its offers before, but I am now!

    Naturally it is unpleasant for call centre staff to have to experience abuse from the public. Presumably in any decent organisation they are trained to deal with it without becoming upset. All that "my staff are in tears" stuff - more manipulation.

    I thought Martin handled it very well. His reply was reasoned and robust.
  • I've every sympathy for Mr Cavells staff. There's no excuse for rudeness. But this is as far as I go. Viking Direct are a company I wouldn't give the time of day to. I recently gave them an order worth about £40. Not for the freebies, a genuine order for Items I urgently needed to run a business. I received an e-mail confirmation of acceptance but after waiting a week and not receiving anything I rang them only to find out that the order had been cancelled. Apparently unbeknown to me I had two business accounts open. One was an internet account which was very active and I had just used it for the order. The other account I had not used for years. The internet account, with outstanding order, was closed down. And Viking didn't have the courtesy to tell me that I wouldn't be receiving the order. The result was I had to travel into the city centre, with three kids in tow, to try and track down these items from various shops. An whole day wasted at great expense to myself. Yes, I sent them an email complaining via, their complaints procedure. When this was ignored I wrote a letter. I'm still waiting for a respose and I'm not too hopeful. So the moral to this story is don't even bother complaining to Viking Direct. They will not respond as they do not care and they are a law to themselves. Quick to complain themselves though. Martin, please feel free to forward my message to Mr Carvell.
  • nightsong wrote:
    Mr Carvell is a very clever man. He is the managing director of a successul company

    The bloke I wrote to complaining about this company was called Peter whom called himself the Managing Director of Viking Direct. I've no idea what his surname is though. I'm still waiting for him to reply. If Mr Carvell is Peter he is certainly quick to complain about MSE'rs but not quick to address genuine customer complaints. icon8.gif
  • raeble
    raeble Posts: 911 Forumite
    nightsong wrote:
    Naturally it is unpleasant for call centre staff to have to experience abuse from the public. Presumably in any decent organisation they are trained to deal with it without becoming upset. All that "my staff are in tears" stuff - more manipulation.
    Yes you are trained to deal with difficult customers, in a calm manner as not to aggravate the situation. What you can never be trained for is not to feel. All the training in the world is not going to train people to get rid of their feelings unless they are some sort of pschyo. I have seen people talking very calmly to the customer and then the minute the phone goes down, they start swearing or crying. He could well be stretching the truth but from my experience of customers I wouldn't be surprised if it was true. People seem to think they can be as rude as they like while they are on the phone and can't see you. I doubt these people would be as rude if they walked into a shop.
  • pjala
    pjala Posts: 420
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    I also believe that any MD only cares about his call centre staff, up to the point where their work is affected, and hence profits are affected by "rude" customers.

    I would have thought that the best process if you get a rude customer, is to get to the issue, then get it passed up the food chain as quickly as possible so the company can deal with the problem and improve the process or solve the problem. What this will do though is tie up higher level management, who have better things to do like for instance think up new marketing promotions etc.

    I would imagine most cc staff are discouraged from passing any messages on at all, so they end up taking the brunt and feeling like they are cornered. The CC staff then solve a problem, they get the customer off the managers', and MD's back, leaving them to think up new ways of fleecing the consumer. Like I said, ask assertively (if not forcefully) to speak to the next layer of management up, then it gets taken out of the CC staff's hands and they don't feel under pressure to deal with it, and they won't get upset.

    Mind you, it kind of undermines the role of the call centre in the first place.....
  • belleooo wrote:
    I recently gave them an order worth about £40. Not for the freebies, a genuine order for Items I urgently needed to run a business. I received an e-mail confirmation of acceptance but after waiting a week and not receiving anything I rang them only to find out that the order had been cancelled.

    We have a result... Viking Direct have apologised and promised to investigate this further and have promised to get back in touch with me in a few days. So will now wait and see what happens. I have shopped with them for a lot of years and I am surrounded by their products (comfty chair, paper, stationery etc) and would have been lost without them. icon7.gif
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