Dipstick Business Award 2010 Archive
2010 Archive
In this article we name businesses that show the most remarkable lack of customer service, the ones throwing business and profits away, the ones you shouldn't invest your pension fund in, the ones most in need of an injection of common sense. This is the archive for 2010 awards.
Metrobus - 5 December 2010
It's been a few weeks since a company really annoyed me but this one is for all the transport companies who have failed us during recent wintry weather. This bus company operates in London, Surrey, and Sussex, and cross your fingers that they don't come North. It so happens I was in a semi-rural part of London (yes they do exist) last week and for much of the time trapped by heavy snow. My car had been abandoned in a car park 8 miles away. It was completely understandable that bus services were disrupted or even cancelled; the roads were appallingly dangerous and that is down to councils not bus companies. On Friday I checked their website status report and some buses were operating. I hiked a mile and a half through knee high snow up a 1 in 3 hill to get to the stop and lo, there was the bus waiting opposite the stop, the driver resting. Along with a small band of other intrepid travellers we waited 30 minutes in sub-zero wind for him to start his engine. Then he reached up, changed his destination board and turned around to come back to the stop, only to whizz by with "Not In Service" displayed. Disgusting. Eventually, after another hike, I managed to board another bus and via a circuitous route, including more buses and a tram, finished my journey, picked up the car and headed for Bolton. Bus and train companies have been rightly criticised for failing to keep passengers properly informed. Disruption is excusable in the circumstances but there is no excuse for giving out incorrect information and for discourteous behaviour by staff. A final mention for Biggin Hill Newsagents for having the rudest shop assistant I can ever recall. I'm glad to be home!
Blackburn College - 31 October 2010
You would have thought that supposedly intelligent educators would have seen the flaw in their plan when they decided to offer £5,000 to any student that failed their A-Levels. There are conditions attached including attending lessons and completing coursework but the college is so confident in their track record that they are putting their money where their mouth is. I don't know of anyone that has heard of this plan that hasn't immediately pointed out the obvious. For £5,000 kids will go to their lessons, hand in their coursework on time, and forget how to spell their name when it comes to the exams. Had this been on offer when I did Geography A-Level then I would have sworn the Earth was flat and the capital of France was "F" regardless. £5,000 the richer to fund a fantastic gap year, I would retake somewhere else and pass 6 months later. It looks like Blackburn College has 4,000-ish 16-19 year old students. Let's say 2,000 are taking their A-Levels so they are in for 10 million quid if the kids have any sense. To be honest they only need the sense of an average 6 year old to work it out after all. Blackburn College will, no doubt, also be the first 6th form institution in the country to have a 0% pass rate. Contrast with Marlowe Academy in Kent offering £150 to pupils who meet an attendance target and pass at least 5 exams. Someone at Blackburn College, presumably a Monster Raving Loony Party member, came up with this nutcase idea and there must have been numerous people involved in the decision who could have pointed out the obvious. It is utterly incredible. Even if it is not quite so easy as the media reports imply to get the payout the mere fact that they announce a massive incentive for failure means heads must roll - you can't be in charge of educating our kids and be this stupid.
Waitrose - 3 October 2010
Hmmm, this seems to be turning into a monthly award... still, one or two are in progress to boost nominations. This week the bad management culprit is posh cooperative supermarket Waitrose who are looking to expand from their Southern base into the North. The crime is to throw away £500 of annual revenue for a loaf of bread. Coming out of Asda with £30 of goods when I only went in for a loaf of bread isn't something incredible given they spend a fortune working out where to place products in the store to maximise this kind of customer outcome. I pondered as I was leaving how I came to be in that particular branch. For several years, on my business travels, I have done a minor detour one or more evenings a week to a branch of Waitrose to pick up a loaf of bread, normally turning up about 20-30 minutes before closing. As is inevitable my average spend usually works out at around £10, and if I visit 50 times a year, which is about right, that is £500 of my money they end up with. But a few weeks ago I went in and a lad was busy throwing all the bread into a plastic sack half an hour before closing time. I left with nothing and since then my detour is to an Asda where I can be sure they won't be disposing of essentials. I went back to Waitrose last week and again left with nothing - they had dozens of french sticks left with 5 minutes to go and were still charging over a pound, essentially for stale bread. I have better things to do with my time than make detours on the offchance some idiot won't have thrown all the bread away before closing and so Waitrose lose £1 for the bread and £9 miscellaneous purchases I didn't intend to buy there, £10 a week, £500 a year. And a competitor gets it instead. I know my money is a drop in the ocean but how many other customers do they alienate through stupidity, and I suppose it explains why Asda is huge and Waitrose are not. Funny thing was, I didn't make a conscious decision to take my business away from Waitrose, I just stopped going there. And it is that easy to lose customers. Perhaps the lad with the sack wanted to get off work early and didn't think it mattered but it was a £500 mistake.
NCP Car Parks / 3i Group - 5 September 2010
4 years ago I started using a multi storey car park run by NCP. It is not in the best part of town and I once came across drug users on the stairwell late one evening. Not a lot going for it except that at £6 a day it was the cheapest around and so it was generally about 80% full. When arriving after 9:00am you could easily find yourself on the 9th floor, the first two floors being contract spaces. The price started creeping up and is now £12. I switched to weekly tickets a long time ago. Two years ago that was £25. Last year it bumped up 20% to £30. And a month ago there was another 20% hike to £36. However, 18 months ago I had discovered a monthly ticket for £80. Those price hikes now mean that generally I can park on the 4th or 5th floors. With the contract spaces empty this means that only 3 floors are now effectively full - 30% capacity. If you can retain the same income with half the customers then that can make good business sense if your overheads decrease as a result. The reality is that they have systematically driven away firstly the daily parkers, then the weekly parkers, leaving only the monthly ticket holders, those who yield least in revenue per vehicle. The monthly tickets haven't gone up at all and, in fact, my latest bill shows a reduction from £80 to £65. There is a price point beyond which people will not buy goods or services. In this case that seems to be £6 a day and anything more means people go elsewhere. NCP first lost their £6 a day parkers, then their £5 a day weekly parkers, then cut the £4 a day monthly-based ticket to the equivalent of £3 a day. My best guess is that a couple of years ago there was a daily income of £1700 and this has now dropped to £450, a substantial and inexcusable drop that is no doubt being explained at Head Office as "recession" but in reality is a consequence of incompetent management who cannot grasp the basic concepts of profit maximisation. NCP is owned by private equity firm 3i. 3i seems to have made a whopping great loss in 2008/9. In 2007 3i shares traded at over £7.60. Today you can knock a fiver off that: £2.70, and last year they were edging down to around £1 level. Seeing how they make key managerial decisions that directly result in a 70%+ loss of revenue, and are still making those kind of poor judgements, you would not catch me putting any of my investments in their direction yet one or two brokers say "Buy" though I doubt they see NCP car parks in action. Once upon a time you could assume that big market leaders like NCP must have brilliant leadership to have achieved that position. Clearly wrong and NCP you are the weakest link. Goodbye. Runner up goes to North-West-based Holmeswood Coaches on contract to National Express for dangerous driving on the M40. Coaches are too big to weave in and out of lanes without putting lives at risk. Maybe National Express timetables are unreasonable and being late carries penalties - that might explain it - but I am sure most passengers would rather get to the destination late but in one piece.
Update, 14 December 2011: what do you know, parking reduced to £5 a day and the car park full to the top again. Maybe someone at the top got wise. 3i shares went up to £3.40 earlier in the year but are now half that so maybe it is a panic move. Time will tell.
Findmypast.com / 1911 Census - 15 August 2010
With a growing interest in all things genealogical, the online publication of 1911 census records, including scans of the original forms as completed by your ancestors, is very tempting. The National Archive has managed this by allowing a private company to do all the digitising of the records and charging substantial fees for viewing and downloading. By substantial I mean around £3.50 per image although you have to buy in blocks of credits - £6.95. OK, I thought, I'll get my mother's maternal and paternal grandparents' census forms. I found both, eliminating in the process the very strong chance of a cross-dressing ventriloquist being my great-grandfather. I successfully downloaded the records for one side of the family, then clicked on a button marked Next. At which point it took me to the record for the next door neighbours and deducted me £3.50, my remaining credits. Why on earth would I want the records for a completely unrelated family? I hadn't asked for their records, never searched by street. Findmypast, though, must make an absolute fortune by charging customers for images they didn't want and didn't ask for. Out of credit I would now have to buy another £6.95 of credit, or complain bitterly. I took the latter course, and with a threat of trading standards got my lost credit refunded and duly obtained the record for the other side of the family. But how many people take the former route and end up robbed by a cynical and reprehensible revenue-generating tactic? The National Archive, as owner of the data, has a responsibility to make sure their partners do not rip off the public. Whilst I got a refund, there was no acknowledgement that they had done anything wrong, only a note telling me what I already knew - that clicking on Next takes me, without warning, to an image in which I could have zero possible interest. For causing a red mist to descend upon realising I had been pickpocketed, and for not recognising they had done wrong, the award goes to Findmypast.com with a dishonorable mention for the National Archive.
Parking Control Ltd - 25 July 2010
There are some choices this week. In third place Asda, already an award winner, for sticking up some prices by 10% or more whilst claiming to “rollback” the cost of shopping. No doubt we’ll see some of those hiked prices reduced by a penny and hailed as a cut. Second place goes to Six Town Housing in Bury, owned by Bury Council but seemingly in the midst of some bizarre power struggle that has involved the representative board being replaced by bureaucrats appointed by the Chief Executive. But the winner is Parking Control Ltd, a Manchester-based clamping outfit that charged a seriously ill disabled driver a £275 release fee when he parked for a few moments on a garage forecourt in Hull during freezing conditions in January this year. Click for the full story. The company refuses to communicate with MPs and journalists. The MPs are now trying to get the law changed to bring greater control over the great clamping scam but this is far too weak and wishy-washy. England must go the way of Scotland and ban private wheel clamping and towing altogether and rid ourselves of these modern legal gangsters. Has this Government got the guts to do something 99.99% of the population would applaud. Let’s hope so.
18th August 2010 - miracle of miracles, after the exposure of South East Clamping, a firm equal to Parking Control Ltd in the despicable depths to which they will descend, the Government has responded and said it will ban clamping on private land later this year. Fantastic news, and a disgrace that Labour did nothing in their 13 years. The industry body immediately starts squealing and saying a code of conduct would be far better for everyone. Should have thought about that earlier, codes of conduct are toothless and useless, and it is to be hoped that every one of these thieving b*****ds go bust and their directors and clampers end up homeless. I've never been clamped but feel like holding a party.
The BBC - 18 July 2010
The first double recipient of the award is (drumroll) the BBC. Where do I start... I love the BBC, I do really, but I'm beginning to think they are on a deathwish at the very time we have a Government that is gunning for them. Firstly, they joined in the Raoul Moat media circus when, if one TV news organisation was going to show some decorum you would have thought that it would be the beloved BBC. Secondly they have spent a fortune on a major revamp of their BBC News website with appalling results; it looks truly dreadful. What they had was something that worked really well, neat, easy to navigate, easy to read. Why change and waste all that money, our money extracted through threat of jail if we don't pay. Thirdly, the Open golf. On a long car journey I want to hear the national traffic news which means tuning to Radio 2 or Radio 5. On Friday afternoon you had Dale Winton on Radio 2, an argument for using a sharpened pencil to burst your own eardrums. So tuning to Radio 5 instead what do I get but constant coverage of the British Open golf. Golf doesn't work on the television. A panning shot of the sky whilst you imagine your eyes are following a tiny white ball has never really struck me as televisual. So needless to say it doesn't work on the radio either although you don't have to pretend you can see the ball they are talking about. Painful. Then on Saturday, full non-stop coverage on BBC1 or BBC2 TV. No-one goes down their local golf club to watch others play golf, no-one purchases replica John Daly golf trousers to show their support, it is a game that only really interests those participating in it. And yes I own a set of clubs and have, from time to time, hit that infuriatingly tiny white ball around 18 holes on a sunny afternoon. But I don't want to watch others do it continuously for days on end let alone make sense of radio commentary. Put it on BBC3 TV if you have to, because it doesn't do anything else during the day. Put it on Radio 5 Sports Extra, one of those digital radio channels that no-one listens to. Finally, Saturday night TV. Where has the entertainment gone? Total Wipeout is good fun because it is unique and genuinely funny, a great concept. But 101 Ways To Leave A Gameshow, which seems to be mildly derivative - lets combine asking some questions with people being dumped into water from a great height - is the most tedious programme I have ever watched. Answering a single question takes sooooo long... Finding out who got it wrong takes soooo long... The loser gets dumped into water in 2 seconds flat. Next question. It makes Hole In The Wall seem exciting by comparison, and broadcasting that show should be sufficient defence to prosecution for failing to pay a TV licence. Sharpen up BBC, dump the crap, take BBC3, BBC4, and the digital radio stations off the air, and give us some of our money back.
Wonga - 11 July 2010
Payday loan company Wonga are the winners this week. Wonga have been doing quite a lot of marketing recently and offering promotional rates of interest. Their standard interest rate is 2689% and the promo rates are similarly extortionate. Wonga's website gives a fairly convincing explanation why the APR, Annual Percentage Rate, is not a fair comparison because they are only offering loans for a month. So let's instead compare them with a credit union, a fair comparison because both are set up with the same target customer base and deal in small short-term loans. The Bolton Credit Union typically charges 12.68% APR, 1/200th of the Wonga rate. The maximum rate a Credit Union can charge is 26.9%, 1/100th of the Wonga rate. £200 for 30 days with Wonga is going to cost you £266.31. £200 for 70 days with Quids In will cost you £202.69. For someone strapped for cash but who has to replace their washing machine in a hurry, £64 extra interest is a hell of a lot of money for nothing if they opt for Wonga. If you can't pay Wonga back the lump sum of £266 on the 30th day then the charges start to rise rapidly too, whereas with a Credit Union you can make affordable regular payments over a longer period if you need to, which makes sense for something like a washing machine. Payday loan companies provide a service to the least wealthy at a time of financial crisis but at a cost that might be described as exploitative. Exploiting the least well off is something that would cause me sleepless nights but it isn't illegal, Wonga isn't hiding anything and their terms and conditions are clear. It is, though, socially and morally irresponsible to feed off the desperate and encourage them to pay £64 more on a £200 short-term loan than they need to. That £64 extra fees and interest is food, gas, electricity that will need to be foregone at some point. For exploitation of the vulnerable, Wonga takes the prize on behalf of all payday loan companies. The Government needs to take urgent action to make this kind of business model a criminal offence by introducing usury laws that cap the rate of interest that can be charged. The cap would make loan companies a lot more careful about who they loan to and boost Credit Unions. In the meantime, if you are in financial straits, don't go near payday loan companies, and get proper free advice from the plentiful free sources available.
Update, February 2011. Times must be hard, the current advertised Representative APR has risen to 4210%. The The Government apparently do not intend to do anything about it. Go figure. Credit Today, an industry publication has also awarded them Alternative Lender of the Year, 2010. Nice to know the industry view 4210% interest as something to be proud of.
Nationwide Building Society - 4 July 2010
Hmmm, I had Ryanair lined up again for cynically putting up the price of putting a bag in the hold just for the summer period when parents with kids are already struggling to make ends meet. But then Ryanair is too easy a target. So Nationwide, a mutual building society. Sad, I like mutuals very much as a concept. I got my AGM papers through and, per last year, the whole thing is a stitch-up worthy of of a good rant. The chairman, Geoffrey Howe (not the former Chancellor) was up for re-election last year but there were no other candidates. Howe's biography proudly proclaims him to be former Chairman of Railtrack. You remember Railtrack, the company so poorly run that it was the only privatised business forcibly taken back over by the Government. Anyway, I voted against but when there is only one candidate that is a bit futile. He gets a £250k a year salary for having a track record of failure in business whilst still on the gravy train. Enough of the rail puns. As expected, those up for re-election had no opposition so is there a point in voting? I did, against all of them, to make the futile point. Now how about voting on the remuneration package. Underlying profits have nearly halved so the remuneration committee have decided that... drum roll... in recognition of strong individual and corporate performances everyone is going to get a whopping big bonus. The Executive Directors are to receive a total of £8.1 million compared to £6.6 million in 2009. That includes £1.8 million in pay-offs to a retiring director. All the rest get between £800k and £1.5 million. It is disgusting, disgraceful, cynical and not a thing the owners of the Nationwide can do about it. This is not a mutual society, it is a mutual line your pockets scandal. But a leaflet told me Share Your Views. You Talk. We Listen. So I went to the Member Zone to try out this democratic forum. Yep, share your views on questions that have nothing to do with the society, like what do you think of the VAT hike. Duh, I wanted to share my views on the lack of democracy in elections and the remuneration scandal. Nowhere to do that. I wouldn't care so much if members were actually getting a return on the profits but interest rates might as well be zero. So Nationwide, you are Dipstick Business of the Week. If I had the time then I would dig out all the rules, attend the AGM in person, kick up as much stink as I could, petition, etc. but instead I'll just fume and forget about it till next year.
Asda - 27 June 2010
A whole month and not one business has irritated me enough to get a nomination here. But Asda break the drought. I do spend quite a lot in Asda each week and they probably get the large bulk of my food and clothing and tobacco budgets plus a fair wedge of my diesel money. This award though is for their latest price guarantee advertisements that are tied in with the big arrows that indicate that some things are cheaper in Asda and some things, but not as many, are cheaper in Tesco etc. Look at the smallprint. The guarantee is only valid against more expensive stores. Which is a pity because on the 27th June, a pack of small nectarines from Spain with one bruised fruit because of the shoddy packaging was £2 in Asda. In Aldi, some larger Spanish nectarines in a sturdy container with none damaged were 69p. Not a few pennies difference; Asda were nearly 3 times more expensive than Aldi. I assume Aldi are making a fair profit so what exactly is Asda making? It ain't a fair one whatever way you look at it. I bought some Nurofen tablets in Superdrug for £1.99. They were over £3.50 in Asda. Again not a few pennies difference but £1.50 or more. Now profiteering is what big businesses are set up to do as long as the customer doesn't notice. But Asda are promoting a price guarantee that tells shoppers not to bother looking elsewhere because they won't get it cheaper. And because we trust big names like Asda not to lie to us we naturally believe them. Asda isn't lying because there is the small print blah blah blah they can point to but it doesn't fall into my definition of being totally ethical but is edging towards shady or shoddy, take your pick. We guarantee to be cheaper than 3 other supermarket chains we have selected because they are usually more expensive and definitely not those stores that are generally cheaper. Oh and there are a host of other conditions and exceptions. Bad Asda for taking us for fools. Sadly because in a 3 mile radius of my home there are no fewer than 6 Asda stores and Aldi don't sell fags or proper uncut loaves of bread or branded products or clothing there is little punishment I can mete out other than to switch a small proportion of my weekly shop to Aldi and give Asda a Dipstick award on this site. I somehow doubt that this will dent the increased sales the price guarantee is designed to generate from those who don't read small print or bother to check out the discounter chains. Shame. Please don't try out Aldi by the way; the checkout queues are already long enough and I'd rather have the place and prices to myself. You wouldn't like it, it isn't for you.
Dettol (Reckitt Benckiser) - 23 May 2010
How stupid does Reckitt Benckiser, owners of the Dettol brand, think we are? I realise that it is the job of a big company to continually think up new ideas to sell to the public and convincing the gullible that they are constantly in mortal danger from invisible bacteria is the task of Dettol marketing executives. Never mind that we'd all be dead were it not for the activities of "good" bacteria that other marketing executives are constantly trying to sell us in yoghurts and health drinks. Never mind that the use of anti-bacterial agents may lead to an increase in dangerous and resistant strains of bacteria. The latest Dettol product is the No-Touch Hand Wash System. Why do you need this? Because your old-fashioned soap pump "can harbour hundreds of bacteria", that's why. Hundreds you say, but aren't there hundreds of thousands in a litre of the water you then wash your hands in? Yep. Difficult to get a figure in the UK, but in Canada it is apparently 170,000 per litre of tap water and 70 million in some brands of bottled water that you drink. What does the No-Touch do? It dispenses just the right amount of soap to kill 99.9% of bacteria. Fantastic, but wouldn't the dispensed soap kill the bacteria you would have got from the old fashioned soap pump? Well yes it would. So what is the advantage of not touching the dispenser? Hmmm, dunno. Ah, you have to buy specific Dettol soap to fit the hands-free dispenser, so forcing consumers to repeat buy the soap, priced well above the competition including other Dettol soap products. So good for Reckitt Benckiser. It is £8 for the dispenser kit, and £3 for a refill. The standard Dettol soap with one of those filthy pumps, that they still sell despite them contaminating you with nasty dirty bacteria, is £2. So another £1 on the profit margin per unit for the same product. Supermarket brands of anti-bacterial soap will cost you under £1 so you can see the margins already applied. Heavy marketing may still make this a successful product - there is a mug born every minute. Most pointless product of the year and for thinking we are all idiots (which possibly many are) this week's award for Dipstick Business of the Week belongs to Reckitt Benckiser. Next time, hire one of the Dragons Den panel before launching the hygiene product equivalent of slippers for bees (Russell Howard reference).
Ryanair - 16 May 2010
It had to happen; the award this week goes to Ryanair. Ryanair have been fined 3 million Euros by the Italian Civil Aviation Authority for failing to provide assistance to passengers during the immediate aftermath of the volcanic ash cloud grounding of aircraft in April. You will recall that Ryanair initially said it would give ticket refunds only and then backtracked shortly afterwards to say it would comply with EU law and pay all reasonable expenses. Whilst Ryanair are claiming the Italian allegations are rubbish, I am not imagining things when I recall Ryanair stating clearly that they would only be giving ticket refunds, so inevitably until they changed their illegal policy to a legal one they had effectively left travellers without food or accommodation. Not rubbish and the Italians are to be commended. A 3 million Euro fine seems far too small to teach these people a lesson in customer service though, and their reaction says it all - je ne regret rien. They may be compliant with the law now but for a while they were ignoring it.
One Ryanair argument at the time was that it was unfair for them to have to fork out hundreds of Pounds/Euros when the ticket had only cost a fiver. There have been other instances of flights being cancelled en masse - US airspace closed after 9/11 - so the type of event was foreseeable and insurable. If Ryanair, in their haste to make profit, decided not to insure then tough, it comes out of revenue. The fact that a company disagrees with a law does not give them the right to ignore it, as Ryanair originally thought they could do. But Ryanair have plenty of other faults. They charge a profit making fee for card bookings except for some obscure prepaid Mastercard card - they need to be brought to book on this one - if the card fee is mandatory in effect then it is part of the fare. Airports far distant from the advertised destination are another favourite. And, of course, there was a suggestion they might charge to use the loo in flight. There are other budget carriers who manage to provide decent if basic customer service and don't whinge when they are asked to abide by the law. Easyjet and Flybe come to mind. Ryanair made other airlines wake up to cheap, profitable, air travel that benefits consumers so there is a chink of good in this otherwise dreadful company I will never use. Remember, you get what you pay for, and when you pay £10 for a flight it ain't worth any more than that.
Virgin Trains - 9 May 2010
This award is also on behalf of other train operators who have been engaging in the same trick but Virgin are the ones that affect travellers in the North West. What is the crime? Stealth train fare rises. Virgin Trains are a major culprit in what can only be called a scam, albeit a totally legal but nevertheless reprehensible and unethical one. It involves redesignating an off peak service as peak. An off-peak walk-up ticket from Bolton to London is around £35 each way. Peak services can easily set you back 4 times that amount or more. I used to use the first off-peak service to London regularly until Virgin abandoned me and 100's of others at Wolverhampton on a return journey, then ignored the compensation claim, since which time I have used the car and saved a fortune and a lot of hassle. This kind of action, when we are supposed to be encouraging more use of trains and less of cars, is completely stupid. It is not going to encourage me back onto trains as I could not afford a 400% price hike. And that train is not particularly full, it genuinely is off-peak. Virgin claim that only a very small number of people are affected - 3.4%. South West Trains employing the same trick are impacting 8% of their travellers. If it is only a very small number then why the hell are they doing it. Saying only small numbers are affected is hardly a reason for doing it, but it is a reason not to. No explanation is being provided. I do hope that those services that have had their fares quadrupled lose the vast majority of their passengers to other modes of transport, and that it prompts whoever takes over the Transport portfolio to clamp down on such abuse of monopoly positions. Virgin, once a brand you could trust, are showing their true contempt for their customers, and need several competitors on the Manchester to London route to teach them a lesson. In the meantime, the government-run East Coast mainline services have had several trains redesignated from peak to off-peak. This is what you get when you privatise monopoly public services. If you privatise then you must allow adequate and genuine competition. But then Virgin have collaborated in fixing air fares in the past so this is no guarantee. Otherwise you have to regulate the fares and West Coast mainline peak fares are unregulated, another reason to move services from off-peak to peak designations. Show Virgin the contempt they are showing you the passenger and boycott their peak services.
The BBC - 19 April 2010
This week it was announced by the BBC that they were cancelling the remade drama series Survivors as it was attracting insufficient viewers for a 9pm BBC1 time slot. They left viewers, 4.5 million of them, high and dry after the second series ended on cliffhanger with many storylines incomplete. In this day and age, 4.5 million viewers isn't that bad but, even so, they could have moved it to a different time slot or to BBC2 or BBC3 or 4. This is typical of US TV companies and highly regrettable that the BBC are following that example. The BBC is a public service, not a commercial organisation where ratings are the be all and end all, and needs to resist this type of thing. At least in the US the networks often put on a special episode to tidy up loose ends but nothing from the BBC. Nothing we can do about it - you have no choice except jail about whether you want to pay for BBC services. This has to end. First, non-payment of the TV licence has to be a civil not a criminal matter. Second, they can get rid of, or commercialise, BBC3 and BBC4 that hardly anyone watches along with their network of second-rate local radio stations. Thirdly funding has to be reviewed - since TV ownership is more or less universal there is a strong case that funding should come direct from taxation supplemented by limited commercial activity such as subscription services. I'm a big supporter of the quality of BBC national radio, the BBC website, and the best of the TV output. The news is the best we have by a mile, and it is uncompromised by commercial interests. But they have to decide what they are: public service paid for through general taxation, or a business run on commercial lines where rating are the only measure of success. If the latter then it is time to cut them loose without the prison sentence marketing gimmick to retain paying customers. Would I buy a BBC subscription for £150 a year - you bet I would - but don't threaten me and force me into it.
Tuffnells Big Green Parcel Machine / TNT - 12 April 2010
OK, this is slightly unfair in that (a) these two companies are only sample culprits, and (b) I picked the dipstick activity and then went on a hunt to nail an example, and got two of them. So what is their crime? Well, you know those roadworks on the motorways with average speed cameras? We mere mortal car drivers actually pay attention to them and drive strictly at or just below 50mph. Not so a proportion of HGV drivers who come within a few feet of the back of your car in an attempt to intimidate you to move faster and risk a fine and some points. When that fails they swing out and overtake, barely able to keep within the narrowed middle lane. Not only do they break the law, and the Highway Code by travelling dangerously close, this kind of driving threatens lives. And for absolutely no advantage. Within seconds of leaving the restricted speed zone the car driver overtakes them back safely. This was the case with Big Green Parcel Machine and a TNT lorries on the M6. In the case of the TNT truck the driver was unable to keep within the middle lane and was veering in and out of both adjoining lanes. This is a real crime, endangering other drivers in an act of absolute futile stupidity. Neither companies are alone but they were the examples I observed that most people would recognise. So what do they care? Well, they should care a lot. Marketing and building a premium brand takes years and a hell of a lot of cash. Liveried commercial vehicles travel the length and breadth of the country as moving advertising hoardings spreading the marketing and brand messages. But when one of those advertising hoardings attempts to kill you and other law-abiding road users the message isn't exactly positive. Indeed, both the companies mentioned will never receive any business from me ever after what their drivers did. Same applies to the representatives of other businesses that intimidate and try and cause me physical harm. I am an occasional user of parcel services but who knows who else those two drivers put in danger. Hopefully the buying manager of a large organisation who is now reviewing the contracts. If not that time then some other time it will happen. Companies spending tens of thousands on turning their vehicles into extensions of their brand image need to ensure that their drivers are fully aware of their corporate as well as their legal responsibilities. On the other hand the FedEx truck driver in the same stretch of roadworks behaved absolutely impeccably. Guess who isn't blacklisted for my business.
MBNA - 5 April 2010
It was only a matter of time before a credit card company made it into this article, and it probably won't be the last time MBNA take the award. This truly awful company has a long history of luring in customers through reasonable interest rate credit cards, many of them "affinity" cards linked to reputable organisations such as the Open University. Having hooked the customer, MBNA then start hiking the interest rate, often doubling it without any explanation that holds water. Try and call their customer services and you may as well be speaking to untrained baboons. It is alleged that their local trading standards have numerous complaints against the company but seem loathe to act firmly. A link to MBNA being the largest local employer in Chester is implied. I do not know whether these allegations are true or not, and I am sure they would be denied, but this is not the source of their award in any case. No, their own website is the origin of their award. MBNA seem to take some kind of pride in only having a little over 4,000 complaints to the Financial Ombudsman over the whole of 2009. In the last 6 months of 2009, of the nearly 2,000 complaints, 85% of them were found to be justified. Add on 500 more, at 99% justified, for an MBNA loans company. 4,000 is not the highest but, given the largest number of complaints are against the big banks with a full range of commercial and retail services to complain about, it is truly appalling. The figure of 85% of cases found in the customer's favour is very near the worse of all financial companies. What this means is MBNA is more likely than virtually all other financial companies to fail to respond appropriately to customer complaints. What we don't know is how many complaints they eventually concede to before it reaches the Ombudsman. Having told customers the dreadful record they have on complaints, they go on to say "At MBNA we pride ourselves on regarding even one complaint as ‘one too many’ and we work hard with customers to resolve any problems." Forgive me, but the record says otherwise. To me, regardless of the jobs involved, this is not the kind of financial organisation that should be tolerated in this country. Left to me they should be on a yellow card and given a very short period to put their house in order or lose their license. If you want to know what kind of reputation they have in their homeland, check out Wikipedia. Yet we poor mugs in the UK still put up with them. Based on their own admission, do not do business with them - even if you pay your balance off in full they have other tricks up their sleeve. Check out other cards very carefully to make sure MBNA is not behind them - Virgin credit cards spring to mind.
The RAC - 29 March 2010
The RAC is a premium brand, by which I mean that the name, logo, colour scheme and so on are trusted as a sign of quality and are valuable as commodities in their own right, regardless of the core roadside rescue service. The RAC cashs in on the value of the brand by using it to sell other products and services and premium brand means premium price - people are willing to pay a little more because of an assumed guarantee of quality. To maintain the premium brand it is essential that products and services carrying the brand live up to the quality assumptions or it starts to devalue. And premium price associated with crap quality is a recipe for disaster. So, when I bought a tyre inflator with the RAC brand I expected quality. What I got was one of the worst quality purchases of this type that I can recall. The gauge didn't work; the only way of turning it on was to plug it into the cigarette lighter socket, i.e. no switch on or near the unit; and it got very hot very quickly and the metal tube was exposed so inviting a painful burn. To add insult, the exact same piece of junk is being sold elsewhere, without the RAC branding, for considerably less. It is going back. The RAC can't afford to associate their name with shoddy goods - I don't trust the brand any more and wouldn't buy anything else with RAC written on the box. I dare say hundreds of buyers of the same product are thinking the same. It has taken the RAC decades to build the brand, and can take seconds to destroy it as Gerald Ratner will certify. The RAC need to be a lot more careful about which products they licence their name to and so the prat who let this tyre inflator through earns them this week's award.
Autoglass - 22 March 2010
With a near monopoly hold over the auto replacement glass market due to the fact that most replacement glass is an insurance job and most insurance companies push you in the direction of Autoglass, the company doesn't need to make sure its end users are happy. All it needs to do is keep the paying customers, the insurance companies, happy. For the average consumer, windscreen replacement is a once in 10 years or more occurence so pissing them off individually doesn't really matter.
When you go to book a replacement windscreen online, you get a choice of dates and times for either bringing the car into the depot or having a man in a van come out to you. So far so good. When I acquired a crack in my windscreen after a stone hit it on the motorway, it looked like I could get a man out the next evening. In fact most slots beyond 24 hours had availability. So I booked and left my phone number. A short while later I got a call telling me that the reality was that there were no slots for the best part of a week. A trip to a depot might get me in slightly quicker. So I went from next day in the evening at home, to a 5 day wait and a trip to a depot. It's either a deliberate ploy to get business - get people to book an appointment that is quick and convenient, then change it to suit the company, or they have a crap website booking service. Whichever it is, it is a poor show, and nothing thee nor me can do about it whilst Autoglass have a stranglehold over the insurance companies' business. Despite an odd mention about problems with seals, which I had no interest in given I just wanted a new windscreen and these guys must do dozens every day, they did a decent job in the end and it was ready when they said it would be. Nevertheless, for inconveniencing people who have no real choice but to use their services, and having a computer booking system that doesn't work, Autoglass are this week's award winners.
O2 - 15 March 2010
Mobile telephone provider O2 wins this week's booby prize. After 15 years with O2 and its predecessors, for the last few months they have botched up our business phone account, double-charging, over-charging, and on one occasion disconnecting my own phone entirely with no record of why. The suspicion is that they meant to cut off someone else's phone and got the number wrong. Several very long calls later and we thought we had it sorted out. Call plans all correct and credits for about £150 issued to cover the over-charges and duplication. No apologies or explanations though, let alone compensation. Now I discover that when they mistakenly disconnected my phone, even though it was reconnected within hours, something in their system told them to stop the discount on my O2 broadband account but not to reinstate it. For 3 months they have been charging me 66% more than they should have. Very annoying. Using the online support system I asked for the discount to be re-applied and the over-charges refunded. Very quickly the discount went back on the account but no credit. Apparently I have to call and speak to another department. It seems to be beyond the wit of O2 to devise some process, or even just train their staff, to "own" a complete problem and solve it entirely instead of passing the customer around from pillar to post, each agent solving a little bit of the puzzle. So they expect me to waste another half hour of my life on the phone to an agent, repeating the same story for the tenth time of asking, waiting for the agent to check the details, and then waiting for a little longer whilst they use fingers and toes to work out how much they owe me, to the nearest penny. Or maybe the pain is to deter a customer from trying to get mistakes, that always seem to be in O2's favour, put right. Sorry, don't take me on, I'll pursue 10 pence on principle. So for incompetence compounded by making a customer work hard to get the incompetence corrected, the award goes to O2. Why don't I leave? Very good package - 300 minutes and unlimited texts for a tenner - it is a shame the product is so attractive.
As it happens, a reply to the email telling me they could not do a credit and to phone ... headed formal complaint resulted in a credit being issued within 8 hours. So, they could solve the whole problem first time had they chosen to do so and not tried to pass the buck. So why waste my time and increase my blood pressure? It is not a good idea to make customers' lives harder than they need be. One day I will find a better call and text bundle from another mobile company and any customer loyalty built up over 15 years will go out of the window as I know that good customer service is not a factor in staying. It strikes me that poor customer service agent training is at the root of this type of problem. Such agents simply do not understand that they are all part of the overall company marketing effort and how they deal with problems either confirms the millions spent on marketing or destroys it completely.
Micro Anvika - 8 March 2010
This week it is computer retailer Micro Anvika with an online presence and stores in London and Newcastle. One of our correspondents, based in South London, was after a new netbook computer. Along with a colleague also after the same he went into the Micro Anvika store in Croydon. After playing with a particular model for a while and extracting loads of information from the salesman, a couple of sales were on the cards. Crunch question - would they do a price match, a £20 discount off the shelf price. Not only was the answer from the manager no, which might be understandable if margins were tight, but there was no attempt whatsoever to do a deal. Not a tenner offered, not a free mouse or USB stick. Two customers walked. Back in the office another colleague asked where they had been and said she was after a netbook for her daughter. Three sales lost. Either the economy is so strong that Micro Anvika can happily let three sales disappear through the door without a murmur or they are employing dipstick managers. Business is hard these days and customers are not afraid to haggle. Retailers who are not flexible are going to lose out. Doing a deal not only gets you the business in the first place over a competitor but you stand a good chance of gaining repeat customers and referrals. In this case three customers are going elsewhere along with their future business and referrals. Some Internet hunting later and Aria Technology won an order for one of the netbooks with a USB microscope and Liteon lightscribe DVD writer added to the order and their profit margin. Who knows what else in the future. The colleague bought his through Amazon along with some extra RAM. Nevertheless, thanks go to Micro Anvika for the information and play time that made up our correspondent's mind. Micro Anvika wins the prize this week but it is also on behalf of all those other businesses that let valuable customers slip through their fingers.
SportsDirect - 1 March 2010
This week's award for dipstick business of the week goes to SportsDirect, the sports clothing and footwear retailer. Unquestionably, if you want branded sports clothing and footwear at bargain prices, this is the shop to go to, and they regularly take a reasonable chunk of my clothing budget. Pile it high, sell it cheap. The queues at the tills can be a pain but they are trying to keep costs down. Some people complain about the assistants but honestly I've never had a problem - if you want a personal shopper, go to Harrods and pay for it. They also operate online and this is the source of their award. Having placed an order on the website and confirmed all the details I was quite happy with my bargains. And then an email confirmation came through with slightly different delivery details - clearly a fault in their systems. Fine, annoying but a quick email should sort that. However, an automatic email comes back saying:
We are working as quickly as possible to ensure all of our emails are answered within 5 working days. If you do choose to call our Customer Service department please be aware that this service is also suffering and it is highly likely you will be held in a long queue until a Customer Services Advisor becomes available to take your call.
Five days to answer an email? And that is only their target? Long after the package should have been despatched complete with delivery details incorrect, and no point in calling them apparently, not that a telephone number is obvious on the site in any case. So it will be chance if the delivery makes it and if not then there is an inconvenient trip to the courier's depot or a wait for a replacement parcel. The small profit on this consignment stands a high chance of being turned into a much bigger loss for the company. Crap service, and crap business practices, indeed. Online shops save considerable costs compared to physical stores, but companies must invest in the basics to run an Internet store. No.1 in the list of basics is quick and responsive processing of emails, preferably 24/7 for a big player - if SportsDirect operated on eBay with this kind of response time they would have 100% dissatisfaction ratings. Get your act together SportsDirect, you've got a good business model with goods people want at prices they want to pay, but you just haven't grasped the Internet concept and will pay for that. In July 2009, the BBC reported that SportsDirect profits had fallen by 91% to just £10 million on revenue of £1.37 billion, and had debts of £430m. With figures like that you can't afford to get it wrong in a competitive market during an economic downturn. And it is so easy to put right.
Postscript: the goods arrived within 24 hours of the order, even though the delivery details were still slightly out on the delivery note. And this was on standard delivery. And the goods were great. Should SportsDirect be forgiven? Well no, not really. Their online ordering system has a fault, their online customer service is crap, receiving the delivery was pure chance that worked this time. Products people want at prices they want to pay, and a superbly quick delivery service, let down by appalling poor Internet business sense. 11 days on and there has never been a reply to the email.
Midland Expressway Ltd - 22 February 2010
The first holder of the title goes to Australian-owned Midland Expressway Ltd, the private company that operates that M6 Toll. The purpose of this road, and the reason planning consent was given, was to relieve congestion on the existing M6 motorway through the West Midlands. Does it do this? No it doesn't. What it does do is provide a very quick alternative road for those on expenses or wealthy enough to afford the ever increasing tolls. It is lovely; very little traffic and virtually no trucks. How it makes a profit, despite high tolls, was always beyond me. In fact I found out that it doesn't. According to the accounts that are available the company makes a loss and has a huge debt.
The tolls are not regulated and so users of the M6 will recently have noticed signs announcing a "price change". Actually by change they mean rise. And by a whopping 6.4% for cars. The "Tag" system is useless, giving only a paltry 25p discount off the new £5 toll With the tag lease cost a weekly return user would save all of £1 a month. Given work to improve the main M6 must not be far off completion, this could be a very big mistake as the few vehicles that use the toll section switch back to the free motorway. Let's hope that the latest rises result in even fewer customers, bigger losses, and a government takeover so the road can do what it was originally supposed to do. Alternatively Midland Expressway could reduce the toll to around £2 and watch the traffic switch and the revenue roll in. In the meantime it is a great big tarmacked white elephant of no use to most local or long-distance drivers. The government minister that signed off that tolls would not be regulated should be shot.
© Evrose, 2012
