Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh
Because I don't believe you fairly comparing the complexity of the business model and the number of customers that major companies deal with, with that of a smal business. For instance, how many customers a day come into your place of business, and what is your annual turnover?
In any model, the more customers you have accessing a service, the more staff you have (all of whom have good days and bad days), the more interconnected and complex services you have, the more likely you are to have someone who's is unhappy with your service (and I reference your "Victor Meldrew" comment).
It's easy for someone with a simple business model/limited product range/low customer throughput to give personal service, but when a company has millions of customers, tens of thousands of staff, and multiple interconnected services/products to sell and support (and I am talking about any large company, not just VM), the odds of having some who is not happy with the service they have received rises at least arithmetically, if not geometrically.
That is not to say large companies should not try to give the best customer service possible, but you cannot please all of people all of the time.
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I'm afraid you are very wrong.
To start with, any staff who deal with customers should not bring problems to work. And therefore personal issues should NEVER have any bearing on the way they deal with customers.
Staff who can't do the above quite simply shouldn't be employed in positions dealing with the public.
If a company (whatever size) employs the right people, and trains them properly, then this alone should eliminate most complaints.
Worst of all is when staff are actually trained to lie to customers, as I have come across a few times with VM.
To be honest I am disgusted that there are two members of VM staff in this forum who instead of passing on customers concerns, actually try and make excuses, and even deny that there is a problem. Well as I have said many times, there is a serious problem with VM's customer service.
You have to remember that VM aren't retailers, they provide a service. And this is a service that should run trouble free on a day to day basis. And I have to say that it usually does, and is in fact very reliable. Even when there are faults that cause disruption in the service, then I accept that as with all technology, this can happen occasionally. And although it can be very annoying (especially when trying to run businesses that rely on communications and IT), it isn't really grounds for a complaint as long as the problem is sorted quickly. With retailers they are relying on products manufactured by third parties, and therefore they are more likely to have complaints.
Complaints usually start out as problems. It's the way that these problems are dealt with that decides if it becomes a complaint. And this is where VM fall flat on their face as far as customer service goes.
The best single way to improve VM's customer service would be to bring the call centres back to the UK. Oh, and stop training staff to lie.