You may recall my travails with UPS a few weeks ago.
As the item was incomplete – the jacket was missing its belt – I contacted the retailer and they told me that it would have to go back for a replacement. Fair enough. I did, at that point, tell them how awful my experience was with UPS and that they needed to ensure that UPS would not be chasing me for import duty on the replacement item. Given their awful incompetence, this was highly likely.
I was assured that this would be the case and I would not be asked to pay again…
Yeah, yeah, I know. What happened next came as no surprise whatsoever. I received an attempted delivery notice on Friday, informing me that they had tried to deliver, but no one was in and by the way, I owe them seventy quid for import duties.
I tried calling them. I spoke to three operators over the course of about half an hour all of whom assured me that I owe this money. Eventually, I was put through to a line that was closed. Apparently I was outside their opening hours at three in the afternoon. To say that the air was blue would be an understatement. I had been pushed from pillar to post, constantly having to repeat the same details over and over, only to be told that I owe money that I do not and it wasn’t their fault.
I tried again this morning. I spoke to four operators, following exactly the same pattern as Friday – by this time I could almost repeat the tracking number by heart. Eventually, I got through to someone who would email someone with a dispute. At this point, I had an email, so I sent them the negative invoice from my supplier showing that no import taxes are due.
I am still waiting at this point.
While dealing with the supplier was straightforward and they have been helpful, I will not be using them again. I will, in future, monitor the carrier that companies use and if they use UPS, I will look elsewhere for my item. I have never come across such serial incompetence, although I’m sure someone, somewhere can beat it.
Update: You couldn’t make it up. I have the package and like the previous one, the belt is missing from the jacket, so that has to go back. This time, I want a refund. The [problem now will be getting my customs payment back from UPS.
During my working life I have seen the transition from knowledgeable customer teams who understood how the various systems worked to call centres staffed by people who no nothing beyond what is written in the script they have to follow. Now you might reasonably argue that most customer calls can be answered by following the script… but for those that cannot be so answered there is a massive resistance to any escalation and resolution. It’s infuriating to be caught in such a Catch 22 situation.
Now I’m a great believer in sharing the pain. If my issue or complaint cannot be handled by the call centre staff I’ll raise a formal complaint on-line, or write to the Chairman, or find a telephone number on-line for the ‘back office’. I’ve once had to invoke Ofgem to get a resolution.
Hey, I’m retired. I can really concentrate on resolving issues that irk me without distraction.
All I want is the jacket I have paid for. Without being asked for more money. It’s a certainty that when he arrives on my doorstep, the driver will do exactly as he did last time and ask for money.
I deal with things the same way. I love complaining. It may be a waste of time but keeps me busy in my old age.
Customer service needs people to work. By removing people adding technology and forcing those people to use scripts they reduce costs, that raises complaints and they may have to pay some compensation but overall they save. Complaints to them mean nothing as all suppliers are pretty much the same now so they don’t really lose business as people just moan online instead so fewer complaints.
It would change though if more of us complained as the cost of handling the complaints would go up.
Rather like Discoveredjoys, when a situation reaches an impasse due to poor service, I find out the name of the CEO from off the internet, if it’s a regulatory director, so much the better, and write a letter of complaint including all relevant information, mark it as private and confidential and send it recorded delivery. At which point the CEO now personally owns my problem. I usually write citing time is of the essence and assure them I will take it further (ombudsman etc.). I almost always get a positive outcome.
Hi Mark,
UPS are the bane of my life too. They now have a mix of employees (driving the brown UPS vans) and freelancers (usually in white vans owned by the drivers). On many occasions, the white van people decide to knock off at 3pm, and everyone after that time gets a ‘we tried to deliver but you were out’ message. I actually got through to a person within two minutes of receiving one, but they called the driver who was, they discovered, ‘nowhere near my house’, thus proving they had not just attempted a delivery. Of course, there was no apology, just a begrudging promise to try again (at an undisclosed future date and time, which turned out to be just to leave it at my door on a Saturday evening, three days later).
So it seems UPS are this year’s Hermes/Evri, but with the added complication of the international dimension.
Until this year, I felt that DPD was the best of them, but I’ve now had many cancelled deliveries there as well. It seems that any kind of customer care or good service has simply disappeared. Maybe that’s why they all have ‘zero tolerance’ policies on customers getting upset with their staff- they know just how likely that will be.
Parcel Force were absolutely shocking.
Fed Ex seem semi competent.