Bloody Bankers

You'd think in these days of no good news about bankers that they'd at least be doing something to ensure good service for customers. But no. It seems that we're just a human commodity to milk for as much return as possible. At least that's my current experience with Lloyds TSB.

I pay £12 a month on my current account to ensure a reasonable overdraft facility - not the cheapest deal and possibly not the best. But inertia has kept me a loyal Lloyds customer for about 25 years - not that loyalty counts for anything in these bank-crunched times.

Anyway, I exceeded that overdraft by £9 for less than 24 hours last month. As soon as I realised what was happening, I put the account back into credit.

Yet Lloyds has written to me charging me £21 - 225% of the amount I went over - hardly a sum likely to make me feel positive about the bank I now own a part of, and something of an insult given the excessively poor decsions the bank has made in my name in recent months.

Now, having worked for banks in the past, I can see both sides of the argument around bonuses. I actually have little worry around those people in the retail bank who pick up a small sum for a good job in a customer-facing environment. But as for the investment bankers. That's a wholly different story. There's no way they should be rewarded for driving a culture that's taken the world into depression. Perhaps, indeed, they should be footing the bonuses of the rest of the bank?

In fact, the more I read about Lloyds TSB, the less i like them at the moment. They say the average bonus they're paying is £1000 but the total is £150 million. With approximately 70,000 staff, that would account for £70 million - assuming everyone got a bonus....and of course not everyone will. So there's 80 million going over and above - which seems to imply that a number of fat cats are getting fatter at our expense, while I get a bit thinner due to excessive overdraft charging.

Anyway, on hearing about the charge, here's my response to Lloyds TSB:

Dear Mr Williams

I was rather disappointed to receive a letter from you this morning indicating that you plan to charge me £21 for going £9.33 past my agreed planned overdraft for one day.

At 225% of the unplanned overdraft sum, I find your charge excessive and would ask you to re-credit it.

I note your letter was sent yesterday, January 21st. Yet had you looked at my account statement, you would have seen that the account, which generally operates in credit, never mind within the agreed overdraft limits, was not just back inside the agreed £400 overdraft, but indeed over £200 in credit.

Slapping on a grossly disproportionate fee rather than alerting me to my account status first smacks of sharp practice and leaves a very bad taste in my mouth – especially in light of the less than glowing examples the banks have shown in their recent conduct of business.

I would ask you to use your common sense in reassessing whether my misdemeanour was worthy of such a charge, and to reinstate the sum to my account as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely



Mark Shanahan

I've had no response from Mr. Williams at the laughingly-named Privilege Direct Team in Glasgow. Instead today I received a standard computer-generated statement of monthly charges stating the £21 will be taken in a few days time.

Totally ignoring me does not sit well with me - and in a time when banks are under such scrutiny, why should I simply accept such high-handed service? Clearly banks have to make a profit - no more so than today. But it should not be through poor customer service and excessive overdraft charges.

Argos as Ebenezer?

It's a Christmas tale to warm the cockles of the heart. a tale of struggle over adversity and a warm heart hidden within the cold face of corporate bureaucracy. And it has been resolved just in time for Tiny Tim to tuck in to the turkey...well you'll know what I mean.

The tale started a few weeks ago when Rory made his debut for the school table tennis team. Now he's not played much, but got hooked on the game in Cyprus over the summer, when he spent most of his days lurking round the table at the hotel waiting for anyone rash enough to take the challenge of a marathon ping pong session with him.

His school has three tables, but the kids have limited access to them as they're kept in the dinner hall. So, when putting together his Christmas list, the one thing he said he , definitely...definitely...'no that's a definite definitely' wanted was a table tennis table. The other kids were well up for one too - fine by me....it'll give them a bit of exercise and it's something we can play as a family.

I soon found out that a) table tennis tables are not cheap; b) they're in short supply in the winter (especially outdoor ones) and c) they're in especially short supply at the moment.

We finally sourced a 'budget' table in Argos and trucked down to Wycombe two and a half weeks ago to order the thing. It appeared to be in stock, so we joined the queue snaking through the shop to get to the one open service point. Now serving on the desk was the ultimate 'puter says no' employee. Attitude, body posture and couldn't-give-a-damn look all conspired to present the positive face of customer service....not. There must have been 30 people queuing to pay, but she hadn't even got the common sense to call any colleagues to help her by opening up one or two more tills.

Anyway, we finally got to the head of the queue and guess what? 'Puter said no. In the time we'd been queuing, any stock of table tennis tables Argos had seemed to have mysteriously disappeared. Her response to my question as to whether they'd have any in? "Try again in a couple of weeks." Very useful in the immediate run-up to Christmas.

Still, I went home and checked on line and sure enough, the table was out of stock for our area - but I was offered the option to be notified by email when the item came back into stock.

So, here's the sequence that followed:

A week later, I got an email stating the table was back in stock. I immediately placed an order - although it appeared from the delivery estimate that the table would not arrive for Christmas. Still, at least I could show the kids that the present was at least on its way.

The next night Rory took a call from Argos direct. L-B was in the room too, and both were grinning and dancing around a bit as the agent informed me that Argos could deliver the table the following Monday (yesterday). So all was good for a bit of festive sport.

But just a couple of days later, I took another call, which prompted my email below:

Having tracked stock availability of a table tennis table as the number one Father Christmas present for my children, I ordered it a week ago (having waited for stock to become available) and was informed it would be delivered this coming Monday in time for Christmas.

I've just received a call from the same person at Argos Direct who arranged the delivery informing me: "We will not be delivering your order on Monday;a representative will contact you within seven days to organise delivery..."

Now how useful is that less than a week before Christmas? No reason was given why the table could not be delivered, and the representative did not know the reason for non-delivery nor could give any indication as to when it might be delivered. He then went on to script mode with "Is there anything else I can do for you this evening?". So I responded: "Yes, you can find out why the delivery can't be made on Monday, and ensure it is made on Tuesday or Wednesday." To which he gave the entirely useless, unhelpful and indeed annoying answer:"I can't do that sir, I'm only authorised to tell you the delivery can't be made."

How useless; how unempowered.....and what a great way to destroy any semblance of a good relationship you have with this customer. Your agent has no authority to deliver customer satisfaction and I'm sure gets little job satisfaction from such an uninspiring role.He asked whether I'd like to cancel the order? And get him and the rest of Argos off the hook? Absolutely not.

You have the opportunity now to be Father Christmas or the Grinch. Do you want to save Christmas in the Shanahan household or ruin it for three kids desperate to get their hands on a table tennis table?When arranging to deliver the goods on Monday, you entered into an agreement with me. You've now broken that agreement at an absolutely crucial time of the year through poor internal practices.I challenge you to honour that agreement and go a long way to restoring my faith in Argos.Please contact me within the next 24 hours to either reinstate the delivery or let me know what you are going to do to restore my confidence in your organisation.....

Having googled Argos Customer Service issues and read a few horror stories (not least comments from one of Argos' own agents at Grumbletext) I made a point of looking up Argos' parent company Home Retail Group PLC, and copied my email to its CEO, Terry Duddy.

However, this was on Saturday, and before I could get any response from anyone in his office, I got this response from Customer Services:

Dear Mr Shanahan,

Subject: Order number XXXXXX

Thank you for your e-mail regarding your delivery. I am sorry to hear that the item can not be delivered on Monday.

This was due to a system error that booked the order in without there been any stock available for the delivery. I sincerely apologies about this.

As you will have been aware when you placed the order this item is delivery within 42 days which means we will contact you before 26th January 2009 to arrange delivery.We will do our up most to get the item to you as quickly as possible we are awaiting stock from the supplier.

I am sorry for the inconvenience that this may cause. Should you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us at order.enquiries@argos.co.uk or call us on 0845 640 2020.

Regards,

Louise Rowse

Argos Direct E-Commerce Customer Service Team.

Now that was not what I wanted to hear, and felt like a bit of a standard fob-off - hiding behind systems errors rather than actually addressing the issue. So I responded, again copying in the CEO. Here's what I said:

Good afternoon

Please note the correspondence below. This is simply not good enough.

The sequence of events is as follows:

1. I tried to order a table tennis table online two weeks ago today and was told there was no stock available;
2. I opted to track the stock so that Argos would contact me when stock was available;
3. On Monday December 15th I received this email:

Thank you for your recent enquiry on argos.co.uk You recently enquired about a Double Fish Table Tennis Table., Cat No. 335/6304, on the Argos web site, which was out of stock.We have just received further stock of this item.If you would still like to order, please click on the link below as soon as possible as stock may be extremely limited on some products and we cannot guarantee availability.http://www.argos.co.uk/BIS?partNumber=3356304&traceablereference=TRK009We hope you enjoy shopping with us. Argos Internet Team

Did you actually have any of this stock at that time?

4. I promptly placed the order - which was accepted, and I acknowledge that it had a 42 day delivery time.

5. Pleasantly and unexpectedly, the following night I was contacted by one of your agents to say the item could be delivered on Monday December 22nd. At this point, my expectation was raised that I would have this gift for Christmas. My son had taken the call and my elder daughter was in the room, and both were very excited at the prospect of having the table tennis table for Christmas Day.

Again, at this point, there was no reason for us or seemingly your agents to believe that the item was out of stock: it had been in stock on Monday; in stock when the order was placed; and in stock when delivery was arranged.

6. It was then utterly galling to be phoned last night by an agent who interrogated me for my details and then announced that the item could not be delivered. As noted in the original email, it was doubly frustrating that this agent could or would do nothing to investigate the situation further and make any attempt to rectify a failing on your side of your agreement with me.

I could have put up with not being called in the first place until after Christmas and not having my expectation raised that we would receive the goods. It's not great service, but I would have accepted it. However, to promise and then take away that promise; and then to hide behind 'system errors' is unacceptable - especially at this time of year.

At the point you arranged the delivery for December 22nd, your agent had varied the agreement Argos had with me and the 42 day delivery window was no longer relevant. Therefore, you cannot fall back on that - it's merely a poor excuse.

It is now your responsibility to rectify this problem - caused entirely within Argos - to ensure we have the selected (and paid for) goods, or another equivalent table tennis table.

As a consumer journalist, I see such breakdowns in customer service often. Invariably, the companies surviving and thriving in this economic downturn are those with the empowerment and ability to resolve such issues satisfactorily....as for the rest? Think Woolworths and MFI. That's where your reputation with me stands at the moment.

Can you step up to the challenge?

Regards.......

Ok, so my message was laid on with a particularly thick palette knife, but the simple message was: never promise something that you can't deliver, and never compound poor customer service by hiding behind 'system errors' or pushing the blame somehow onto the customer.

Anyway, for whatever reason, this note seemed to do the trick. Yesterday I was called by someone in the 'MD's Office' - I suspect Customer Services still, and, after profuse apologies, she announced that they had managed to find a table and could deliver it this morning.

And, at 10.30am, two men in a van pitched up with a VERY large box.....which I'm still trying to convince Sophie is a lamp table for grandma.

So, Argos have turned it round and restored at least some of my faith in them - but it took my usual cussedness, copying emails to the CEO and no doubt invoking my status as a journalist to get an unempowered customer service team to suddenly pull its collective finger out to actually resolve a customer issue caused by a failing on their side.

I'm of course delighted - but wonder why all Argos customers can't receive the same level of proactivity?

Anyway, it's nearly Christmas, Argos-Scrooge has seen the error of its ways and Tiny Tim will, no doubt, be tucking into turkey and all the trimmings as we Whiff-Waff to our hearts' content.

Like many a Christmas tale, it's all turned out well in the end.

Three hotel tales

I seem to have spent most of the last month in other people's beds......no not like that!

Late July/August saw us spend one weekend in Birmingham for a wedding, two weeks in Cyprus for the annual Shanahan-clan holiday, and the weekend just gone in Eastbourne for a visit to the in-laws.

Each stay left me ruminating on what defines quality, value for money and good service.
First stop was the Crowne Plaza in Birmingham for a two night stay. The hotel was priced incredibly cheaply - just £58 per room per night on a Friday/Saturday night stay. It was immediately apparent why when we rolled up to Holliday street and found the building shrouded in scaffolding as it came to the close of a 16-month refurb project.

However, once through the doors, any semblance of building site was left behind and we settled in for a very good weekend. The rooms were newly-decorated, spacious, clean and cool. Probably not to everyone's taste - they were a bit red and black all over - they suited us well. But what really won points for the hotel on this stay was the staff attitude. Over the next 48 hours I talked refurb with the duty manager; good places to eat with the bar tender and cricket with the front desk staff. We weren't asking them to do anything extra or special, but their friendliness and willingness to go the extra step made it an easy and relaxing stay.

That's what we were looking for the following week at another ICH property - the redoubtable Aphrodite Hills in Cyprus. The very fact that this is a package destination - we booked through First Choice - does enough to suggest that this isn't actually the domain of the world's highest rollers, but the hotel didn't quite seem to have cottoned on that in the summer peak at least, they're actually an upscale family holiday destination.

For our first week, the clientele wasn't Europe's high-rollers, but mainly British families with kids and in-laws in tow, and probably more plumbers, electricians and small businessmen like me than the Captains of British industry. In the second week, many of the Brits were replaced by their Cypriot counterparts as Nicosia shut down for the Cyprus holiday season and the capital's families headed for the coast. Over both weeks, the core clientele was supplemented by a visible presence of ostentatiously wealthy Russians - plenty of bling, lots of brand labels....but not a lot of smiles.

The hotel has some great facilities - a well-run kids club that Sophie took full advantage of; a good gym and heath club and, at first glance, a selection of restaurants to frequent. But these formed part of the downside for me. The main restaurant was a buffet for breakfast and dinner. In both instances it was chaotic with often too many staff but too little organisation. It didn't feel five star; it didn't feel special in any way. Two of the alternatives were around the pool, while the third opened only on the last weekend of our stay.

Both the main alternatives that were open during our stay were very expensive - and unsurprisingly pretty empty most evenings. A large waiting staff brigade stood rather menacingly around both and did little to make either seem welcoming. We ventured into one - a fish restaurant, but didn't venture back.

Using the same set-up as the day-time poolside bar, but with linen on the tables, it offered fish priced by weight. So you actually didn't know what you were paying until the bill arrived. The waiting staff was mainly Eastern European and lacked more than a little in warmth though they were exceptionally efficient. However, with a brigade of eight, and just six active tables, they were overly-attentive to the point of being intrusive. What really grated with me was the constant upselling - actually a feature throughout the hotel during our stay. That particular night, we were pushed towards particularly expensive French wines (rejected for cheaper, but still overpriced local wine), the kids' drinks were replenished too often and we must have been asked six times if we wanted to order more, and what finally got me, my eight year old daughter was urged to have a second ice cream by the waitress.

At that point I snapped. I've run customer service courses in the past and have written extensively on the subject for clients over the years. One thing that should never happen is upselling to a child. The waitress got the sharp edge of my tongue; we didn't return to experience the 200 Euro two course experience again (including a child's meal!) and my dis-satisfaction featured in my end-of-holiday comment card.

Other than that, the stay was pretty good. Not everything was perfect - the air con broke down and took a while to fix, random TV stations dropped out on numerous occasions; and we never seemed to get the right number/selections of towels and bed linen. But these were minor things.

I just had a sense that the resort was a tad pretentious and pitching itself for a high-rolling audience when actually its market in summer was more family orientated and cost aware. Six euro fifty for a cranberry and soda and five fifty for a small beer around the pool soon added up, and even the other 'village' food outlets were all priced at a similar premium.

The result was that we used the car more to get out and eat out - more fun for us, but overall a revenue loss for a hotel that probably has too high a staff to customer ratio.

90% of the Aphrodite Hills experience3 was terrific - maybe my expectations are too high, but I came back a bit too focused on the other 10%.

The downside of the package was flying First Choice Airways - a horrible cramped Boeing 757; disaster-scene food and sub-Ryan Air service. Yuk.

Still, it set the tone for this weekend's trip to Eastbourne. We booked in to stay at the Travelodge on the front. Travelodge normally delivers a good, clean, basic product and everyone knows what to expect. But this time I got a lumpy bed, on the ground floor, opening on to the pavement and beside both the reception desk and the lift. On a hot summer's night, it was incredibly noisy (with the biscuit being taken by the person who honked up his night's beer right outside our window at about 1am as he stepped out of his taxi returning to the hotel); the lift had a loud two-tone electronic beep every time it arrived; the front door had another electric beep and the doors between reception and the room corridor groaned open and closed.

Ok, it was unlucky to get the worst room on a hot and busy night. But the staff didn't seem to care, and seemed to have the attitude that any guest was more likely to nick anything not nailed down than be in need of some service. Perhaps if they'd been more welcoming, we'd have had a better experience.

There's both an art and a science to customer service. They appreciated both in Birmingham; some but not all got it right in Cyprus (high praise particularly to the Concierge and Kids' Club staff); and it didn't appear to be on the radar in Eastbourne. It's funny how my best experience was, on the face of it, the least promising - and also cost the least.