Entries categorized as ‘Customer service’
Nationwide put a “hold” on my credit card yesterday due to a transaction from a well known bricks & mortar retailer’s online store (and not one that is about to go bankrupt either).
What I don’t understand is:
- The retailer whose transaction triggered the block is one that I’d bought from several times before using the same credit card. The last time was as recently as October. Why can’t Nationwide use my purchase history?
- Why do I have to wait over 24 hours for my card provider to tell me they’ve blocked my card?
- Nationwide froze my card recently — beginning of November — yet seem not to understand why I consider repeated blocking to be unacceptable.
- Both times they froze my card at the weekend: But their security department is shut (!), so I can’t unblock the card. Why don’t card operators have 24/7 support?
- Putting a “hold” on my card actually stops other transactions rather than putting them on hold! I have to contact each company and ask them to retry payment — Nationwide won’t — and I have to hope that those firms are organised enough to try again. One of them has already tried the payment three times in the last day.
- Amazon appears to have better understanding of my purchase history than my financial institutions. I can go back about five years of transactions there, but a credit card company has trouble with a history of much more than five weeks!
Nationwide isn’t alone here. I had a similar discussion with my previous credit card provider several years ago when they blocked my card due to three online purchases on the same day. That bank has recently been re-capitalised.
Perhaps this is why the financial sector is stuffed?
Categories: Commerce · Customer service · Fail
While I was setting up this blog, my visa card was refused on a critical purchase. The bank helpline had shut 30m earlier.
The bank’s fraud system had intervened as there’d been a series of transactions in a short space of time. Of course there had! I’d just been issued with a new card number, so I was updating my many regular payments. The payees were mostly ones that had been on my previous months’ bill, and the one before that…
Would be great to see a list of card providers that offer all the time full customer service (not just for reporting thefts).
Categories: Banks · Commerce · Customer service · Fail
A few weeks ago my six month old mobile phone — a Windows Mobile device — developed a screen fault. Inevitably, this happened on a Sunday.
I called my operator who told me that:
1. I could not take the phone to a local store for repair/replacement. I had to return it to them for diagnosis by post, although there are lots of shops run by that mobile operator near where I live in London.
2. They could not loan me a suitable replacement phone in the interim. At least they could loan me a phone, but the handset would just be a basic voice phone that would be unable to remotely match the contacts/diary/sync/email on which I relied upon with my smartphone.
3. If the phone fault was not covered by a warranty repair, I would have to separately contact the handset insurance company — although my mobile operator had sold me the handset insurance — to arrange for repair. Clearly, this would take longer, and interestingly the insurance company was not open on Sunday.
If mobile operators sell smartphones, that are specifically about email, PIM etc. How can their customer service be so poor as to not loan a suitable replacement? This is surely an opportunity for a high end mobile phone retailer, or for other networks, to jump on.
A friend with a similar handset with the same operator had an even worse experience. The operator diagnosed his fault as “accidental damage” and said he had to claim insurance. The insurer — remember separate company — claimed it was a warranty fix, refused to pay up, and pointed my friend back to the operator. Last time I asked, and I’m afraid to ask again, my friend told me the buck passing was still ongoing as it had been for weeks.
Anyway, upshot for me was that I sent the phone away, and switched back to one of my many spare smartphones. My operator was extremely quick with the repair. So, after just four days, I had a working smartphone in my hands again.
In the interim, I went back to using my old Palm OS Treo 650, and almost started using a Nokia N80 Symbian handset.
The experiences of using all three smartphones in the same week has prompted me to write up the pros and cons, and why, despite many good points, all of them have significant flaws that leave the door open for new competition, such as a certain phone due to launch in the US on Friday. I’m aiming to write an entry on a few different existing smartphone during the next week: keep an eye on this blog.
The reason is simple: the only way to understand a mobile phone is to live with one on an hour by hour basis. Only then, do seemingly minor flaws become gaping defects; only then do advertised specifications that list impressive features pale in the light of too many clicks; do little performance delays and lack of tactile response mean you bump into someone in the street while trying to find a contact.
Only by living with a smartphone does the real experience come to the fore.
And, only by losing a smartphone when it breaks, do you discover the cold turkey experience of living without, after having being hooked.
Categories: Customer service · Fail · Mobile handsets
Tagged: JupiterResearch Blog Archive
Gripe of the day – sites that insist on web forms for communication, rather than a straight email address, rarely reply promptly. Often they don’t reply at all, and of course there’s no easy way to send a polite follow-up email that refers to the original.
Yes, I know spam systems grab published email addresses, but there are ways around that: my favourite one is to place the email address into an image, similar to the verification code images that sites use to avoid automated access. The main downside with this approach is that it’s less usable and accessible (e.g. for speech conversion) than conventional text but that’s a better option than insisting people complete a web form in my opinion.
And, while I think of it, sites that only publish phone numbers that may only be called from within a specific country are equally evil.
Categories: Customer service · Fail
Tagged: JupiterResearch Blog Archive
Innovative UK ISP Nildram has launched a new broadband option: move an existing Nildram broadband connection to a new home for free and with no down time. This neatly leverages DSL’s high geographic coverage and will be hard for cable providers to match, due to lower per provider reach, unless the different cable providers co-operate.
However, it is an offer that other providers should copy, both to improve retention and to tempt those dial-up laggards thinking of moving soon and so are put off by minimum broadband contract lengths. For Nildram, this is a better approach than offering one month contracts as these enable users to churn on short notice.
Categories: Customer service · DSL
Tagged: JupiterResearch Blog Archive
