Customer Service? Bollocks!

Some stores are just too big. If they are furniture or DIY stores asssociated with very strong colours too, such as blue and yellow or orange, then they must be avoided.

In fairness the big orange DIY store, let's call it P&Q, is usually fine, not just because they employ older staff in orange aprons either, but because all the staff are generaly pleasant and helpful. But their store at Bamber Bridge near Preston is shite! The big blue and yellow furniture shop is shite everywhere, apart from their meatballs which are nearly as good as mine, but that's another story and seems to be a man thing.

To cut a long story short we ordered nearly £1,500 of flooring last Sunday from the big orange store (P&Q). Ten minutes after leaving the store I got a call, they had cocked up the order. No worries, I went back and it was sorted. Or so I thought. They promised to phone me within 15 minutes to confirm the order. What seemed to blow their minds was that I was ordering in one store but the flooring was to be delivered from another.

Over an hour later I got a phone call querying the order and asking me the price. Asking me the price! I was honest and told them the price per square metre. They told me it was actually double. Oh shit! But I then realised, me not the man in the orange apron, that he had quoted the pack price, which carried about two square metres. My price was actually correct. I then took my seat to watch the cricket.

During the next three hours I had three more phone calls. The last two, an hour apart, from two different people confirming that the order was fine and would be delivered on Thursday (today). Great stuff. So I arranged the fitter for 8-00 Saturday morning.

Yesterday lunchtime, the day before delivery, I got a call telling me that only part of the order was available and that the rest would be with me next week some time, there had been a fault on their system. A conversation then ensued. I told them I wanted the problem resolving within an hour or I expected a full refund.

Half an hour later I was told that they could complete the order but it might have to be Friday rather than today. I asked him to check and confirm as either day was fine. He later phoned me back and confirmed that the delivery would be on Friday (tomorrow). That was fine, no problem. The problem, with patience and perseverance on my part, had been resolved.

Half an hour later the phone rang. There was an apology, they don't deliver to Lancaster on a Friday. Well under the circumstances, and £1,500 spent couldn't an exception be made? No. I asked to speak to the manager. She would phone me back within 15 minutes. So I trawled their website and found their customer service number, which is in Scotland, and in true Monty Python style, I registered my complaint in very high dudgeon. They were very sympathetic, good training I suppose, but it would take 24, or maybe 48 hours for my complaint to hit their system.

An hour later the store manager from Bamber Bridge rang. Absolute waste of space. She sounded like a Little Britain tribute: "Computer says no". She even had to ask a colleague for the surname of the person I had been dealing with, which gave her a good giggle I know because she didn't cover the phone properly. Her story was not a system fault, oh no, she told me they had found that part of our original delivery was damaged. She was worse than useless and I can see why that big orange store in Bamber Bridge is such a shambles.

So last night I went off to watch Lancashire, always a pleasure especially when trying to put an afternoon of shit behind you. Then, at 7-00pm I got a text message from P&Q, maybe on the Orange network, confirming delivery this morning. So when the shite is it coming?

This morning I phoned customer service to check as each time I have phoned the store in Bamber Bridge it has been answered by a caveman who can only grunt. Delivery was confirmed for tomorrow and the attitude of the manager, and the stupid text, have now been added to my complaint.

What a nightmare. But the worst thing is probably sat on the end of a phone while these huge companies play stupid music down it interspered with the odd message telling you how important your custom is. So why can't they be arsed hiring enough staff to save you hanging around on hold for half an hour every time you ring?

And from the government down, don't you just know that the more they harp on about how important you are, how valued you are, how you are in their thoughts 24 hours a day, that they are really just dreaming up more and more excruciating ways to give you a damn good metaphorical bloody seeing to and charging you ever more for the sodding privelege?

Bastards all!

By the way, it's B&Q, I changed the name to protect the guilty.