How can we not help you? Welcome to customer disservice

One of these sofa, please - do you do it in "heavily delayed"?

“The customer is always right”, the saying goes. 

That may well be true, but it would appear some well-known companies are unable to remember that.

I’ve encountered two fine examples of big names getting it badly wrong recently, both of which left me considering switching allegiance and frothing at the mouth.

First to get their logo emblazoned boldly onto this particular wall of shame is energy supplier NPower. They’ve struggled badly in the past with customer service, regularly appearing way down the rankings when it comes to keeping their punters happy.

I still have decidedly un-fond memories of calling them up to change tariffs, then repeatedly having to call them months later as they still hadn’t switched my account and were charging me a higher rate.

My current beef revolves around the amount I pay each month for the honour of receiving gas and electricity from them. I have an old house, which guzzles both supplies like they’re going out of fashion. I therefore need to pay a sufficiently large amount each month so that I build up a bit of a buffer by the time the even-chillier-than-usual winter months roll in.

So, what did they do? Refunded me £103. Then informed me they estimate I’ll owe them £101 by the time my next bill is due. Bravo. I’m presuming you have vacancies in your Rocket Scientists department.

We move on to John Lewis next. Usually very good, a recent purchase of lounge furniture highlighted that keeping your customer informed of what’s happening is a sensible thing to do to avoid annoying the hell out of them.

On Christmas Eve, we spotted something in their furniture clearance sale that was just what we wanted. Sofa, so good. We didn’t buy it on the spot (we felt bad about upsetting our vintage settee over the festive season) so rang the next day. They could deliver it, free of charge. Lovely! Someone would be in touch to arrange a delivery date.

Four weeks later, the silence was deafening. I rang, and a lovely lady agreed it had been a long time. Despite being on hold for 15 minutes, she couldn’t find out what was happening, so told me I’d be called back inside 48 hours. 4 days later, Mrs G got a phone call from a carrier who wanted to deliver it the next day, and was disgruntled when we said no as we’d both be at work – he’d been told it was urgent and had to rearrange his schedule.

JL were even worse when we rang. This time they were decidedly grumpy about it, and keen to point out how much it was costing them for our sofa to be delivered.

A simple phone call, at any point, to agree when we could be in to greet the delivery guys (who were a genuine delight, by the way) could have avoided all this. It might also have left me a happy shopper and likely to buy from them again.

I’m off for a lie-down on our new couch – I need some retail therapy.

This post first appeared as the lead piece in my column/page in The Mail and the News & Star, on the 2nd of February 2018, where it was re-titled as "Are you sitting uncomfortably?"

Still no sighting of a News & Star - I'll keep you posted!

Deeply disappointing to have been let down by the normally very reliable JL, and so very simple to have avoided, utilising that marvellous invention, the electric telephone.

(CD A-Z: Midge's Ure's rather splendid "Move Me".)