Dipstick Business Award
From Bolton Interweb
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. Hopefully none of them will be in Bolton or the North West! When I started this article I was worried that I would not be able to find enough candidates. The candidates have to be doing something wrong that impacts on their whole business, a general corporate failing, and not a one off complaint. Sadly, so far, it hasn't been a problem and there have been times it could have been a daily award so some big names have got off for the moment. This is not a good sign for British business. However, it has to be said that in deciding who should win the bad business award, it makes you think more when you get good service and I have to admit I have been pleasantly surprised several times.
The good news in 2011 is that the number of offenders is noticeably fewer than a year ago, and recession seems to have been good for focussing the minds of business managers on customer service. Even my candidate for most evil company of all time, credit card giant MBNA, is improving. So what was a weekly award is now occasional. Thankfully Ryanair are as outrageous and entertaining as they have always been when it comes to unbelievable lack of customer care, so will no doubt make the list again at some point.
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LV= - February 2011
The first award for 2011. A bit unfair though because LV= (or Liverpool Victoria) is one of the few remaining independent mutual societies left offering excellent quality financial products at very competitive rates. It always pleases me when profit goes into improving services rather than a fat cat's back pocket. My car insurance renewal came through the letterbox, but when I put the exact same details into their website the quote came out over £40 cheaper. I called but the operative could not do anything about it, so I had to cancel the existing policy and take out a new one. The explanation was that you get discounts for using the online service. OK I can see that it is cheaper to get people to buy over the Internet, but the cost of renewing a policy must be minimal and less than the admin involved in cancelling one policy and setting up a new one. Madness, and completely unfair on existing customers who are being exploited in a way you might expect from a profit-hungry corporate but not from a mutual. So, for wasting my time and their own, for increasing the costs of renewing my policy unnecessarily, for partaking of a noxious commercial practice, and for taking the risk I would take my business elsewhere, LV= is the first dipstick business of 2011. On the plus side I am happy to have remained with them, albeit at the lower rate, and would encourage people to take a look at their policies and get a quote. But remember that if you do take out their cover, never accept the renewal quote!
Ideal World - May 2011
Ideal World is Britain's second major TV shopping channel with a format very close to the original QVC and set up and presented by former QVC presenters. It has been many years since I'd seen the channel but hopping around I found them advertising a great laptop computer at what looked like an incredible price. I don't need a new laptop but I am a sucker for technology so I admit I was interested. A laptop with a true widescreen display, a proper numerical keypad, what could be a really decent processor, plenty of RAM and hard disk space, and Windows 7 Premium. All for £279. So why are they winner of a dipstick business award. Well, because I didn't buy it, and frankly after 10 minutes or so I made a positive decision to carry on channel hopping and never return. It started off OK with a summary of the features. Fine, now lets see the details of these great features which really had me hooked. But no, instead of that we got drivel culminating in some bizarre discussion of what if you wanted to take your dog for a walk on the beach, well you can use this laptop to find out about beaches. What about that great wide screen for movies? What about the numerical keypad for doing work on spreadsheets? The processor, the RAM, the hard disk, Windows 7 Premium? Nothing. What's the battery life? Nothing. Then the presenter tells us how he would show it off on a train journey and how impressed his fellow passengers would be. Sorry, it is 2011 and the sight of a train passenger with a laptop computer is not really going to cause a stir. The sight of a z-list TV channel presenter trying to show off a cheap laptop might cause some disruption as fellow travellers flee to the next carriage though. Worse, this laptop is an eMachines. What does an eMachines brand laptop say about its owner? Cheapskate, shops at Lidl and Poundland, knows nothing about brand names. Don't get me wrong, the name wouldn't put me off, I shop at Lidl and Poundland, but I wouldn't be showing off about it. Before I switched over I did notice one other thing that appalled me. If I wanted to buy it I would need to call a premium rate phone number at 20p a minute. On yer bike, QVC is a freephone number. Anyway, checked on the Internet and for £10 less and free delivery you can get a comparable laptop with the Acer premium brand label (eMachines is the budget Acer brand). So for talking drivel to the extent of making a potential customer run away and find the same product cheaper, for failing to capitalise on some fantastic features for the price, for expecting customers to ring a premium number to buy from them, Ideal World is truly a dipstick business.
Daily Express - June 2011
I had some tests done at the doctors and knew I would have to wait around for a couple of hours so bought a Daily Express on my way. I don't normally buy papers these days, the BBC News website gives me all the news I need and it is usually trustworthy with a much lesser inclination to melodrama. But the Express has the best puzzles to keep one occupied. I should have known from the front page to put it back on the shelf. Killer Food Bug Hits Britain. No it hasn't. A handful of Brits who had been in Germany had become ill on their return home but the Express headline is bound to cause its less intelligent readers to start panicking. Irresponsible and misleading. The other front page story should have given me further reason not to buy. Why Diana will never be forgotten. Exclusive. We know the Express has an obsession but the lady has been dead for 14 years now. 14 years!!! Sure enough on the inside 2 page spread there is also a picture of Mohamed Al Fayed. I solved the Moderate 18 minute Sudoko in 5 minutes flat so the puzzles are not what they used to be. I won't be buying the Express again ever. For irresponsible and misleading headlines and for stories 14 years beyond their sell-by date, the Daily Express is a dipstick business. I'm not the only one to think so. Once the Express was the top-selling newspaper in the UK by a wide margin. When I first read it, my granddad's paper of choice, they had about 4 million readers. Now it is around the 600,000 mark, and it is a continuing slide 40% down over the last 10 years. Interestingly the London-only Evening Standard is about to overtake the Express in readership and an annoying thing about the Standard is that it cannot print enough to meet demand.
Soletrader - July 2011
The News of The World / News International would have been an obvious contender but it's too early to tell how that one might pan out. More homicidal advertising hoardings were also in the mix. But a new entrant, upmarket shoe retailer Soletrader, beats the competition to win the latest award for crimes against retailing. I was after a pair of black size 9 Fitflop Supertone trainers, at £90 more than twice the maximum I would normally pay for footwear. They are hard to find so when I passed a branch of Soletraders I went in for a look. This is not a cheap store so I was surprised that there were no assistants around. One girl was sort of attending to a gentleman keenly interested in two £100 pairs of shoes but all I heard was a half-hearted we can order them in and he left with his wallet undisturbed. After some hunting I found a size 9 grey Supertone. Still no attention so I went up to the counter where the sales girl was now messing around with some boxes. No if its not out we haven't got it. Can I try these on. Yes. No do you want to try the other one, no pointing out where the seats to try on shoes were. I found the hidden area myself, tried the one shoe, right size, right style, wrong colour. Back to the counter and box girl. We can order them in. How long? A week maybe, depends where they are coming from. Not a lot of help that. Can you check if the Trafford Centre store has them in stock. Obviously boxes are more important than customers so a young lad appeared from the back to call the Trafford Centre from a pay phone behind the counter. After 5 minutes of inane chatter to box girl he eventually asked the unseen colleague in Manchester if they had actually gone to look. Obviously not. More minutes pass until I am told they have 2 size 10's and a size 11. Are they any good. Not really, what a stupid question. I walked, my wallet undisturbed. 15 minutes, only 2 customers, near £300 at stake. No sales but boxes neatly stacked inside each other, so that's a result. Later on the Interweb I found Soletrader's website and there is an instore stockchecker, so why didn't they use it!!! Anyway, I then found the same trainers on the Jules B website, reduced to £67 in a sale that hadn't been there a couple of days beforehand. And the site didn't charge me the £5 next day delivery either. Got them next day. Jules B deserve a minor award in this category because the £5 delivery charge had made them uncompetitive at the full price, and would have got my order first time around without it, so they were lucky I went back to their site. For throwing away near £300 in sales, pissing off customers through sheer unprofessionalism, and putting boxes first, Soletrader is Dipstick Business of the Month.
The High Street is a tough place right now with several big names biting the dust in the last few weeks. Shops cannot let customers keen to part with their cash leave with it intact, at least not without making every effort first. In this case proactively giving attention to customers, stock-checking every branch via computer (since they already have the facility), ringing and getting the stock into the store in 2 days, and so on. It isn't just about bad management and training. Should Soletraders cease to trade in soles, the staff will be wondering why, blaming their management or the Government or the bankers, then try and get another retail job where they can continue their dumb and dumber act. There was an interesting interview on Radio 4 about how businesses can expand too quickly, one key factor being that you inevitably start lowering standards of recruitment not least because the owners can no longer personally select and manage every person. I wonder whether this applies to Soletraders.
Update, 14 December 2011: Should have known better and ordered some shoes for store collection. 2 - 3 days according to the website. That was 10 days ago and the tracker says should arrive on Friday. First a payment glitch but then when that was sorted they took 3 days to despatch the goods by slow boat to China. Useless especially since I am nowhere near that store until January after Thursday. In the cut-throat retail world of today this isn't good enough and I am now a permanent ex-customer come what may.
The Halifax - August 2011
Choices, choices, choices. Yes, three choices, First candidate this month is Ikea for the most infuriating shopping experience on Earth. Having selected a new armchair I thought this would be easy - item selected off the Internet, got the code, noted the warehouse aisle and position, checked the stock. But nearly an hour waiting in traffic jams to get to the Manchester store was only the start of the nightmare. Within 10 minutes of entering the store from the rooftop car park I had located and tried the chair, fine. Now let's load it up and go... Follow the grey path said the assistant and follow it we did, winding through every display of unwanted furnishings, then down the escalator. Another grey path around all manner of accessories, bedding, toys, you name it, then down the escalator. Another grey path, no way back, committed now. Strangely laden down with stuff I had no prior intention of buying but missing the salad spinner that are almost impossible to find anywhere else. But you can't go back, pushing against the great mass of others following the grey path in one direction only. And eventually the furniture self-service warehouse, which is where I wanted to be an hour previously. Manhandle the box onto the trolley, pay at the self-serve till then into the lift back to the car park. Hang on, could have got that lift down from the car park in the first place. Damn that assistant and his follow the grey path mantra. But is this a dipstick business. A nightmare sure, but a brilliant top quality armchair at a bargain price, easy to put together, and £50 of things I didn't want also packed into the car. Will I go back? Probably, admittedly armed with a picnic and after a couple of stiff drinks. And it is the job of every good business to sell customers things they never thought they needed. So as a business it is a good model I guess, and crowded car parks are evidence that even in times of recession a big ticket item business can go from strength to strength.
Second contender is the BBC, specifically BBC News, and the moronic and dangerous presenter that this morning attempted to instil panic in the general public by making the ludicrous statement to Vince Cable that the stock market plunges earlier in the week would have dire consequences for pensioners because pensions are share based. Cable, naturally, pointed out that stock markets go up and down all the time and that pension funds are based on longer term trends not one off hits. I have a share based investment and it has never been worth more after the canny fund manager obviously bought a load of under-priced shares during the last slump. Hope he's done the same again. A BBC reporter, reporting on economic matters and interviewing Vince Cable, who hasn't got a clue about stock markets and just wants to make a dramatic point, only to end up looking really stupid, is a low point in BBC dumbing down. But one ditzy reporter doesn't undermine the whole of BBC News so yellow card this time.
So the winner is the Halifax who phoned me on Friday night (I say night because it was later than what I would describe as evening). Hello, it's Helen (not my real name but I don't want to tell you that) calling from the Halifax. How are you this evening? Sorry, who are you? What is it that you want? It's Mary (not my real name etc.) from the Halifax, how are you this evening? I have a Halifax account so concerned this might be important I decided to comply with the request to give an opinion on my current state of health since we were going to go no further without that small talk on the script concluding. Fine, what can I do for you. I want to talk to you about a product you will be interested in. Personal injury insurance... Ah, sorry not interested. Thanks for calling. Well it's a really good product so I'll just go through the policy wording with you... Did you not hear what I said? Silence. I said I wasn't interested, I was being polite and said thanks for calling. Oh that answer isn't in my script, I have to go through the policy wording. Good night. I shouldn't be getting cold calls for insurance, having signed up to the Telephone Preference Service, and normally I say that to them, remind them it is a criminal offence, and threaten to call the police if I get another call. I didn't do that this time as I was so dumbfounded that someone from a respectable company like the Halifax was ignoring a customer saying not interested. They have annoyed me to the extent that they are now on my personal blacklist of companies not to do business with. They haven't lost a salad spinner sale like Ikea did because I couldn't face a second more in their store but will return for another big ticket item next time. They have potentially lost lucrative long-term financial product business like insurance I do want and need but will now exclude them from. No wonder this once great company, the biggest and most prestigious building society in the entire world, is on the skids. Halifax, you are Dipstick Business of the Month.
Tip for the Halifax and other companies who telephone to try and sell something and the customer says not interested - say OK, sorry for bothering you, have a nice evening. Bye. That way I might just think you actually listen to your customers rather than ignoring what they say, and I might listen to you next time you call uninvited, and next time you might be selling something I actually want to buy. But if you demonstrate complete ignorance of what your customer is telling you, you could be selling the Taj Mahal for a fiver and I wouldn't be interested.
Liberro - September 2011
I thought it was going to be Haribo, the sweet manufacturer, this month. Odds on favourites, no contest. Frankly my television screen is at risk of having a boot put through it if Haribo do not cease and desist with the worst advert of all time. I seriously can't think of any advert ever that is quite as dire as the squidgy baby sing-along embarrassment. I wonder the authorities have not arrested Haribo executives for child abuse - the kids in that ad will require plastic surgery and have to move abroad. But then this award is for bad business. And the fact is that so awful is the Haribo ad that it is being talked about all over the Internet and there are few people that are unaware of their new bag of flavoured gelatine (substance derived from the collagen inside animals' skin and bone) confectionery. It ain't easy to flog animal skin and bone by-products to kids so really you have to give them credit for maximum brand awareness. So what about Ryanair's latest free booking card switch. Apparently the charges are not for using a card but an admin fee to pay for the running costs of their website. Novel idea - I wonder if it will catch on - when you go into Sainsburys they could add on £5 to pay for the cost of a cashier, cash register, and conveyor belt. With an extra £5 for every kid you have in tow to pay for the cost of re-stocking the Haribo display. But Ryanair are still just too easy a target.
So I'm going for a mail order company called Liberro who sell electronic cigarettes - e-cigs. As one of the outcasts of society, a smoker, I have a couple of e-cigs which I quite enjoy. But one was faulty and I was looking for a new one. Liberro seemed to have an interesting product at a competitive price and I was tempted. I started to fill an online shopping basket. Then I read the shipping information and cancelled it. Shipped by Royal Mail, free on orders over £35. So what's wrong. where packages are lost or delayed in transit, liberro.co.uk is not able to offer a refund or re-ship the products free of charge. Oh really? That's not what the law says. Please ensure you take a copy of your Order Confirmation Email to any Post Office in order to make a claim.. A few minor flaws in that plan, the main one being that an order confirmation email isn't the proof of postage that the Post Office need to register a claim. So Liberro won't refund you and the Post Office will laugh in your face. Mistakes are made by the best of companies and non-receipt sometimes is caused by non-despatch which is just inconvenient for a company abiding by the law of the land and you don't lose your money. But Liberro are saying they are not going to abide by the law up front, you will lose your money if your goods don't arrive. So abandoned shopping basket. You can pay by PayPal and get them to refund you but that isn't the point. General point for mail order companies - read and abide by the law or you will lose a lot of business. It is incredible that anyone can set up in this type of business and not check their legal position. And you'll have to pay out in any case since notices denying customers' legal rights are invalid. General point for those buying over the Internet - read the small print and don't buy from companies that try and deny you your rights - if you need to exercise them it will be a hell of a hassle. At the very least pay by PayPal for smaller amounts so you can raise a dispute and get PayPal to refund you.
Scan Computers - October 2011
I wanted to avoid nominating a Bolton company but unfortunately the time has eventually come. I've known Scan since they were operating out of a big shed in Little Lever and now they have a lovely state of the art showroom at the Middlebrook. It works a bit like Argos. Place your order at the counter then wait for it to come out of the warehouse. Great products, lots of stock, brilliant prices, friendly staff, not too long a wait for the goods. So what's not to like, this is obviously a business that is a success story, from small beginnings to a major web player. Well, everything is a bit half-baked. Take the opening hours. Office hours during the week, shut early on Saturdays, closed all day Sundays and public holidays. In other words, when you have time to shop they are not open. It isn't customer friendly. Then there is this Argos type thing. It could work but banks of pay positions at the counter, all empty bar one, makes for long queues. But then the real killer, paying. No chip and pin machine. This means the assistant fills out the online sales form, types in your card details, and it is authorised online. Not only does this take an age, but you have to remember your online password not your PIN. It is patently insecure, which is a worry, and obviously the banks don't like it because my first card was refused for fraud prevention reasons and this had been happening all morning apparently. It can't be saving them money, but it does mean each transaction takes ten times what it needs to, which must cost a fortune in staff costs, as well as pissing off customers waiting in a queue. And finally, my goods were unnecessarily put into a bag. But it wasn't a Scan bag but one from another business in Bolton, obviously with a surplus. This is a good business, goods people want at fantastic prices. But it's my source of last resort when all else fails. I dare say many potential customers don't even know it exists because it is never open when they are not at work. I suspect Scan do very well indeed from the mail order side but in this age of austerity where every advantage has to be taken, throwing away local retail sales so carelessly is unforgiveable. Proper chip and pin terminals, proper opening times, bags without someone else's name on them, it ain't difficult. Scan, for such minor fixable faults that make you my last resort when you should be my first by a long margin, you are Dipstick Business of October 2011.
Tesco - January 2012
Sales down, share price plunges, market share pared back, our biggest retailer blunders with its big price drop promotion. I suspect that in tough times your average consumer is checking the price tickets and while Tesco hypes an apparent discount the customer is apparently discounting the hype. Value tuna chunks up over 50%. Value shortbread fingers up 60%. Frozen cake up 20%. Warburtons loaf 15% more than Morrisons. I didn't spot any price drop on anything on my list but everything I did want had gone up by at least 5%, everything, and I walked out with about a quarter of that original list. Don't try and fool the customer, they are no longer easily fooled. Worse, a big promo for Lurpak tubs at £2 tempted me but the normal slightly salted variety, in same cabinet amongst the £2 stickers, was actually £2.98. Very misleading. When I went to customer services to complain, the guy had exactly 98p in change in a pile and handed it straight over no questions asked. Could be coincidence I guess. For trying to fool customers and clearly from the figures being caught out big time wiping £5 billion off their overall market capital, Tesco is the first Dipstick Business of 2012. Result, selective boycott on my part; I won't be buying owt that is not on a genuine substantial promotion.
© Evrose, 2011
