Today I tried to contact someone at British Gas, my energy billing company. I failed, utterly failed * Started live chat 48th in queue, 25 minutes later 12th in queue and logged out from website * restarted live chat 58th in queue, looked and gave up * Phoned, went through menu system and spoke to someone, after the FBI interrogation where I had given every detail I had, I mean every detail, as the last piece of information was given, line went dead. I still had not even explained what it was about. * Waited as they had asked for my phone numbers in case they would ring back to recover the line they dropped. I should have known better. * 10m later I rang again, went through the menu system only to be told it was now a 16m wait, so gave up * went through complaint procedure and web form, took 6 minutes All in all about an hour of my time, all I wanted was my 11+ year old smart meters to either be automatically read, or even replaced so that my energy monitor would work and to ask them how long this would take as I have been waiting 14 months. Complaints have a handling time of between 7 and 21 working days….so I am not holding my breath. You would think when they only have one job to do, they would excel at it…but they clearly couldn't care less about the customer.

I am sure this wasn’t the first time and won’t be the last for all of us. It’s rare you get to hear sorry after a long wait. The bigger the company, the greater the probability they will lack the basic courtesy. I won’t blame the folks on the other-side of the phone though. They are also like us. It’s the company culture and policy, tbh. 😊 Edit: They can learn a lesson or two from the likes of Amazon and Apple

> @"dfk41"#p17922 Just move supplier! Who to, who is better and I fixed my rate with them s it's £200 to move (£100 per fuel). Besides, I'd just like them to do their job properly.

@"DavecUK"#p17926 Ah, I must have missed the part where you mentioned the fix you had done! In that case, sympathies matey

Yeah any type of phone based customer service interaction is usually about as fun as plucking eyelashes. The thing that makes me go ‘grrr’ is drivers using their mobile phone. I’ll walk through town past a queue of cars at lights and at least 50% are on their phones. Mum’s in their Volvo XC90, car full of family, can’t even get off their Instagram… If I’m on the motorbike and I see it in a car next to me I’ll usually have a word. They usually put it away. Just no excuse. Zero. As a designer I’m always trying to think of a tech implementation to just stop it from happening but with navigation, passengers, the fact you might be on a train/bus etc it’s hard to lock features using the motion sensor as you need to determine who the driver is. I noticed Google are able to determine if you’re on a motorbike (presumably by lean-angles and speed in the gyroscope) so we must be close to a method. It just needs to recognise that you’re a driver and then restrict functionality to navigation and hands-free phone calls.

@"Ernie1"#p17931 Have to agree, using mobiles while driving is personally scary, not to mention 100% illegal in Qld. Very grrr. Only did it once, decades ago and the loss of vehicle control scared the chicken soup out of me. Seriously glad I'm not on a motorcycle or pushbike these days, it's an unacceptable extra risk.

@"DavecUK"#p17918 unbelievably frustrating and making a complaint within a systemically broken culture li,e that is pointless.

@"tompoland"#p17949 Lol, a bit like having to communicate by phone with a government department. Make sure your mobile battery is fully charged 😴

@"CafeNoir"#p17969 I also hate phone automated call handling that take what seems like a lifetime to navigate a massive set of menus, all with very specific seeming options. Eventually when you have disappeared down a blind alley, with no question seemingly covering your issue, it's press star and wait. Or when such a system just automatically hangs up on you!!!

Things that make me go grrr! Graffiti (and we are not talking Banksie's here). Went on a trip to brussels a few years back and virtually every building in the centre had awful graffiti including really nice old buildings but even worse…even white vans parked for any length of time had graffiti scrawled all over them. Any TV programme that spends five minutes telling you what's 'coming up' then re-capping after the break as if we only have the memories of a fish and excessive packaging just to name three.

things that make you go grrr!

CoyoteOldMan

Cuprajake Inflation? No, deflation.

Cuprajake

shrink flation,

i had a mars bar the other day, thought it was a miniature

CoyoteOldMan

Cuprajake My waistline is still inflating, Mars bars or no Mars bars…

DavecUK

CoyoteOldMan Thats a great thing, it means it’s not the mars bars, so you can keep eating them.

Cuprajake

So I need some new hockey skates, been speaking to the local shop, and he confirms he has a size 8 in for me to try,

So tonight I set off, get there

Shops shut, the guy who runs it for the owner is playing hockey on the pad, I have to wait till he comes off for a drink, explain what I came for, “ light switch is on the wall” so I go in the shop, the size 8 is actually a size 7!, So go back to the pad, ask the guy again. “oh boxes on the shelf, should be there”

Yeah it’s not.

Txt the owner, oh yeah think I did sell the 8 sorry

2hr round trip!!!!

Cuprajake

So when I did the back garden, I ordered one piece short.

Here’s the pic showing how much it’s faded in 3 months.

CoyoteOldMan

Cuprajake 😨

Hope the plastic/fibre/wood is a bit more durable than whatever they used to colour it…

Cuprajake

By next year I have a feeling it will be white.

DavecUK

Cuprajake Wow, major colour fade.

SurreyAlan

When I replaced my rainwater goods the fittings, ends, angles etc came with a warning they would fade and they have though the guttering hasn’t, if I ever replace them again it will be with black or white. Today’s grr is I put my shot down on the edge of the worktop saver and over it went, never imagined 36ml would cause so much mess.

-Mac

Going all the way from Gloucester to London to visit the Spanish Consulate for a Visa appointment, only to get there and find they’ve lost it and won’t see you and the place is full of Spanish bureaucrats who are real jobsworths and can/will nothing to help you. I have to rebook and go again. Grrr.

DavecUK

-Mac Seems that the government employee attitude is similar all over the world, I wonder why that is?

LMSC

A near-perfect incident

When you make 3:30 hours round trip on a Sunday morning to check and take a delivery of 2016 Major Automatic for nothing! Looked perfect every way including a few videos of it running. The grinder looked spotless, it comes alive without beans on the hopper. The seller throws a full bag of beans. Grinds at the highest setting, switches off to go finer at the espresso setting and it won’t run anymore. They empty the hopper, open the burrs, give it a clean, run again and nothing! It won’t even run in at the coarsest setting! A few more tries were in vain! The seller was equally disappointed, surprised and didn’t want to sell until it is fixed.

A waste of Sunday, the time and money for fuel, but saved £350 cash.

Ernie1

LMSC

I understand not wanting to buy something faulty but were the burrs jammed?

Exactly the same thing happened with my Super Jolly. Guy gives me a demo in the coffee shop I bought it from and I get it home, and it won’t run. Loosened the burr up and it was fine and has been ever since.

I’m just wondering as you said the guy switched it off to go finer which would make it possible to adjust the burrs too tight which you wouldn’t do with it running as they’d chirp like crazy before it got jammed.

Cuprajake

No way, that’s so annoying

I’ve done the same for a car, turned in to the street to find an absolute nail

LMSC

Ernie1 No Jam. It won’t even run and at coarser settings. They may come back and won’t be going again for the same piece. :-)

Cuprajake It is indeed. Glad I walked away and saved £350. It was supposed to be cash deal like Gumtree.

Ernie1

LMSC

Ah ok, thought it was probably a silly suggestion!

DavecUK

Bad capacitor most likely.

LMSC

Ernie1 It is what it is! May be, what Dave stated is the issue. Not end of the world. :-)

DavecUK

I do think we the public are taken for mugs, company contact lines with 1 hour waits and phone menu systems with menu options nested 20 deep (often government ones). This one for me takes the biscuit. Just who they hell do they think they are….a queue and limited time on a website….when they constantly spam me with e-mails and offers.

I initially thought it must be a joke, but no! So Cassio can go fork themselves…

HarveyMushman

DavecUK

The watch world has become somewhat of an infuriating space to deal with due to trends over the past couple of years, fuelled by our friends the ‘influencers’.

I for one can’t wait for all the hypebeast ‘drops’ to stop and watch buying/selling can go back to how it was where people just bought watches to enjoy and not solely to flip for a profit. Thankfully prices have already started to come down from the recent insanity.

Casio have seen some fanfare lately due to a collab with Ed Sheeran and a video he did for Hodinkee.

Definitely doesn’t excuse the fact you’ve had to queue but could explain why their traffic is high at the moment.

« Previous Page Next Page »