3UK's completely disconnected customer experience
This is just brilliant. AND we’ve got AUDIO!
Remember I blogged the other day about the super 3UK offer for pay-as-you-go USB modem deal? Well, reader Dan Lane went straight to the 3UK site and ordered one. The result? Well. Complicated. I’ll let him explain…
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Ok, first things first. Who am I? I’m Dan Lane, mobile geek, entrepreneur and CTO at Howler Technologies (a title I share with legendary mobile developer Jay Fenton, yes, we have two CTOs). I am the polar opposite of a “normob”.
I have strong opinions on most things but this article isn’t about sharing my opinion with you, it’s an opinion-less factual representation of an exprience I just had with Three customer services.
Ewan posted about the £69.99 PAYG USB Modem deal that Three are currently running, in the small print I noticed that there was a further £50 off for existing Three customers and decided that was great value for money and I’d have me some of that action.
When ordering they look up your postcode and guess your address. I always write my address in the following format:
Apartment 123, Building Blah
Street Name
London
SE12 3AB
When I entered my postcode I was offered a list of apartments in the following format:
Apartment 123, Building Blah, Street Name, London, SE12 3AB
Brilliant, I picked mine from the list and my address was filled in as:
Apartment 123 Street Name
London
SE12 3AB
That should do, I know my credit card has authorised payments to similarly mis-formed addresses and there is only one building on my street so the courier can find it. I place the order and think nothing more of it.
Delivery day comes around and I don’t remember seeing a confirmation e-mail so I check my spam folder and there it is, along with another e-mail telling me my payment didn’t go through due to a “mismatch” because my address eventually ended up as:
Building Blah
Apartment, Street Name
London
SE12 3AB
I am told to visit a link and correct my details, the link is: http://threestore.three.co.uk/3pay which, at the time of writing, displays the standard IIS “The page cannot be found” error.
No problem, I’ll just call the 0870 “Three Shop Helpline”, correct my details and we’ll have this sorted in no time at all.
I record all the calls I make to any customer service dept, simply because of all the terrible terrible experiences I’ve had in the past, here is my first attempt to traverse their IVR.
Notice that when I select 5 for any other queries it asks me three questions specific to delivery, when I then select option 3 for “all other delivery options” it claims to be transferring me to a customer service representative but actually dumps me out to the main customer service number for existing customers which, presumably, isn’t going to be able to help me with my existing order. I go a few options into this menu before realising where I am and hang up.
In my second attempt when I select 2 for a query about an existing order it asks me the same delivery-specific questions as it did in my previous call when I pressed 5 for any other queries. Sensing that this call was going the same way I ditched it and called back.
The third time I hit magic number 4 which put me straight into a queue, which was playing a horribly jittery skipping version of Dionne Warwick’s Walk On By interspersed with a crackling voice thanking me for my patience, here is a sample. I won’t post the whole call because a lot of it involves me reading out my address multiple times.
Eventually someone answered and said that because the order had been cancelled I’d have to re-order, since I couldn’t use the website she passed me through to direct sales so they could take my order over the phone. Unfortunately the sales chap told me that the £50 discount offer was a mistake and he was unable to offer me the same price, however they would do the same deal but with £20 off instead of £50. Fair enough, this is still a great deal and I’m happy to go ahead with that, I ask the chap if that’s the very best price he can do and he goes away and checks.
When he comes back he tells me that unfortunately £20 off is the best they can for existing customers but it’s only available on the website. When I point out that the website won’t work for me he apologises and I ask him to confirm that there is nothing he can do to help me before ending the call.
In situations like this I like asking that final question because it gives the other person one last chance to think about it and perhaps say something like “actually, maybe my manager can help”.
My name is Dan Lane, and I constantly find myself an unfortunate victim of customer service.
