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I have never, ever dealt with any above mid-sized company that handles customer service and delivery well. There seems to be a set of standardised industry prac

I have never, ever dealt with any above mid-sized company that handles customer service and delivery well. There seems to be a set of standardised industry practices that are completely and utterly customer hostile. The moment regular company employees stop dealing with customer issues, delivery, etc., and hands it over to "specialists", it's basically a crap shoot whether you can get any issue resolved at all, because the systems they put in place make it nearly impossible. For example: A courier claims they called at your house and got no answer, even though you were in and they didn't. You call customer services, but they have no way at all to contact the courier and tell them to go back and try again. Even if they're only two minutes down the road. The system deliberately puts a firewall between the reps and the delivery infrastructure, because any kind of ad-hoc action to resolve customer issues interferes with the logistics planning for the day's deliveries. All the rep can do is rearrange delivery for the subsequent day, whereupon the problem often repeats itself, but this time with a different courier, and a different rep. I had this process repeat several times, over a period of weeks, until simply cancelled an order completely (one worth hundreds of pounds to the vendor). I do wonder if higher level managers realise that delivery departments are optimising purely to make things easy for themselves, and what that's potentially worth in terms of wasted effort, lost orders and customer hostility. I guess they probably don't care, because it still saves them money on aggregate.

petercooper 9y ago
I have never, ever dealt with any above mid-sized company that handles customer service and delivery well. I have. Amazon. Over 15 years now and flawless every time.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  That's because they fuck over their sellers. I tried to sell a modem which I had previously purchased through Amazon. The modem came both as a bundle and by itself. I listed it correctly as purchasing the modem only, listed it "like new" (when really it was basically new, not removed from the box). It was actually the lowest price you could get it used. Someone bought it, shipped it to them faster than necessary. About a week later I got a notice from him saying that he wanted a refund because he had thought that he was getting the bundle (not just the modem as it was listed). Why they thought they were getting the bundle like new for that price is beyond me, but whatever. I rejected the refund because it was their mistake and it would have been too much work to be worth it. Sensible, yeah? They initiated a claim against my account and Amazon withdrew the money (it was actually great timing - overdraft). The claim said the the item condition was wrong (it was not). You are able to contest any claim like that so I took the time to explain what had happened and why the issue wasn't even about the item's condition. I don't know if they just didn't bother reading it or if all responses are handled with robots because I get a very superficial answer that didn't even acknowledge what had happened. I repeated the process in order to try to talk to another person, wrote up another account of what happened (including the new non response), and got the same kind of non-response (you must list items under the correct condition, blah, blah, blah) from a different rep. Basically, they just didn't bother answering me. I'd already wasted way more time than necessary on what I thought was gonna be a little extra cash, so now some dude in Minnesota got my modem for free, and I got an overdraft for my trouble. That's a cool trick. Got no clue what's going on over there but I'll never sell anything there again if I can avoid it. Worst customer experience ever.
  - shiven 9y ago
    Worst seller experience ever. FTFY. You are not the customer, just a seller. You don’t matter. The “Amazon smile” is for customers only.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - firefixfox 9y ago
    Exact same thing happens on eBay, at least here in the UK.
    - aeorgnoieang 9y ago
      In the US too, and probably everywhere else as well.
- nonamechicken 9y ago
  Probably my worst experience was with Amazon. Ordered a big sofa sized furniture. Got wrong color which was cheaper. Asked them to adjust the price since I didnt want to go through the hassle of shipping it back. No. The guy just said "we dont price match, you can sent it back and order again". Not even a sorry. I got so frustrated at his response, it ruined my day. Tried twice more with similar response. I sent it back, ordered again (at a lower price than my original order). In Amazon's defence, this items price was dropping heavily during that period. But I wasnt asking them to give me new price. Because of this incident plus Amazon taking 4-5 days to just start shipping and the news about fake goods, Amazon is no longer my first preference.
  - wolco 9y ago
    I ordered a small item 5 dollars item came was different tried to refund but wanted me to pay to ship back the product which costs more than the product. I gave up.
- astura 9y ago
  Amazon support is absolutely terrible. Amazon seller support is even worse. I mean, the worst. Only matched by health insurance companies. The huge problem with Amazon support is everyone I've ever interacted with (besides that one time I got forwarded to a supervisor) either have a fundamental lack an understanding of the English language or lack reading comprehension (or listening if phone support). They also won't or can't spend any significant time on any one customer inquiry, they need to move onto the next. On the buyers side they understand how to refund an order which they do readily, ship items, say you can keep items that are errors, maybe some account stuff, and that's basically it. If you need them to do anything else that requires them to understand your inquiry it's an uphill battle. Basically, you get terrible support if your inquiry can't be solved by quickly pressing the "refund" button or the "ship item" button. I guess most buyers usually only need those two buttons though. I actually think that's part of why they have such a big problem with counterfeits (and other issues). If someone complains about a counterfeit some low paid employee who doesn't really understand the problem just presses "refund order," the customer stops complaining, and the systemic issues remain. I have a nightmare Amazon seller support story, but I won't go into it for fear of spiking my blood pressure to dangerous levels. It was only resolved by me finally getting forwarded to a supervisor, who, finally, understood English.
  - simias 9y ago
    That's my experience as well. As long as all you want is return faulty/not-needed-after-all articles then Amazon is great. Never ever had a hiccup in 10 years and I order a lot of stuff. However if your request is a little more specific and doesn't fit neatly in whatever scripts they're using then it's a bit of a mess. I mainly use amazon.fr so I've interacted with the french support but like you they had a rather thick accent and seemed to have trouble understanding me at times even though I did my best to speak slowly and clearly. In the end I could see that they kept reverting to the script and where a bit lost when I tried to steer things away from it. I just wanted to complain about a transporter who kept failing to deliver my parcels so it wasn't a big deal but I think it would've been pretty difficult to interact with this (nonetheless very kind) person if I had something a little trickier and more important to figure out with them.
- b4lancesh33t 9y ago
  Yep. Other replies about bad selling experiences notwithstanding, as a buyer, Amazon's experiences are mechanically great. They might sacrifice a seller on an altar every week, and that would be sad, but it makes your statement no less true.
- chairmanwow 9y ago
  I 100% agree. The day that I became a lifelong Amazon customer was when I mistakenly ordered a mattress to the wrong address via Prime. I noticed the mistake some 28 hours after placing the order. I nearly said that I called them to tell them about my mistake, but that isn't true. I typed in my number online AND THEY CALLED ME when an operator was available. The operator quickly calmed me down and told it was "nothing to worry about". She cancelled the shipment of the mattress going to the wrong side of the US and placed an order for a replacement within 2 minutes of learning about the problem. On top of that, without being asked, she upgraded my replacement to 1 day shipping FOR FREE so that my order would still arrive by the original delivery date. Since I screwed up in such a ridiculous way, that I would have fully expected to have gotten slammed with a return shipping fee, a shipping fee for the replacement, and even some kind of BS replacement fee. But Amazon took the bullet and provided me the the best customer service I ever could have hoped for, which prevented me from having to sleep on the ground for even one extra night.
  - Talyen42 9y ago
    I agree, it's great for the consumer. But amazon didn't take the bullet. The seller of the mattress took the bullet. Amazon didn't lose a penny. Sellers just have to assume a 10% loss of gross margin due to issues like this. It's not the end of the world, but that's where the cost is.
    - aeorgnoieang 9y ago
      > Sellers just have to assume a 10% loss of gross margin due to issues like this. It's not the end of the world, but that's where the cost is. This explains why individuals selling individual items, or a small number of items, can get so burned too. You need sufficient volume to cover all the inevitable bullets you have to swallow.
    - jamaicahest 9y ago
      >Sellers just have to assume a 10% loss of gross margin due to issues like this. It's not the end of the world, but that's where the cost is. Cost of doing business. Reminds me of the book "What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars" where Jim Paul describes how someone trading in lumber doesn't cry about 20% of the wood being useless, he knows 20% will be useless and he writes that up under cost of doing business. Just like refunds and customer support are a cost of doing business.
- matwood 9y ago
  I would agree until they started using the USPS.
- _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
  Customer since before 1999. Only if everything goes into the two categories: 1.) send again 2.) reimburse/take back Everything else doesn't work at all. I had a phone from Amazon, empty box delivered, they had no way to stop the contract, weeks of pain, my threat getting the police involved solved the problem. Amazon Logistics didn't deliver important stuff with evening express several times, Amazon did nothing. One time they tried to deliver an order at 10pm (!). And I had a 10-minute discussion with support who told me it was deliver 10am until they reread the entry and agreed it was 10:07pm - at an office address. Support stuff lied to me and put lies in their support system.
  - werdnapk 9y ago
    I recently received an empty box from Amazon. No more than 5 minutes with their online support and they had created a new order to re-send the item with their fastest shipping option. Easiest customer support experience I've ever had honestly.
    - _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
      I'm suprised, a phone with an attached contract?
      - OoooooooO 9y ago
        It's usually the other way around (at least in germany / europe). You "buy" a telephone contract and get the smartphone on top (priced into the contract of course).
- pjc50 9y ago
  Amazon contract deliveries to organisations like Yodel, who you can't contact directly and have exactly the same problems with failing to deliver or chucking parcels over the fence etc.
  - kawsper 9y ago
    Everytime I see my package is being delivered by Yodel I just sighs, they always find a way to fuck up an order. But to be fair, it seems like Amazon, are no longer working with Yodel, I have not seen any item I have from bought from Amazon.co.uk to be delivered by Yodel for at least two years.
    - kennydude 9y ago
      Amazon just use "Amazon Logistics" which I refuse to pay for any random guy with a van to deliver stuff randomly anytime up to 10pm
- wyager 9y ago
  I’ve mostly had good experiences, but once I had a battery charger fail and destroy some batteries. I spent over an hour on the phone while the CSR tried (and failed) to look up how voltage worked so they could blame the failure on me instead of just sending me the $60 order again. Just gave up after ~90 minutes.
- kharms 9y ago
  I cancelled my prime account after a string of issues, the worst of which I’ll summarize. I bought a $1300 camera, received a $500 camera. Easy error, easy fix. I wish. I had to call twice to initiate the return, call twice more to find out why a moth later I had neither a camera nor my money. Turns out the return was silently rejected. Why? “Wrong item returned.” No kidding! Had to call a fifth time to finally get this resolved, but at the end of that call I realized I was paying amazing $100 annually to fix issues that they caused.
- squeaky-clean 9y ago
  I have years of free Prime because my 2 day orders never come in 2 days. At least they give you something when they mess up, but they do mess up a lot.
- gmiller123456 9y ago
  >I have. Amazon. Over 15 years now and flawless every time. Wow, I have a completely different experience. I had been a Prime member up until about 2 years ago when my last 10 out of 10 deliveries arrived late. Since I noticed Amazon wasn't really competitive with other sellers on E-Bay, etc, I only used them when I actually needed something fast. So, moral of the story is I paid more for something to get it sooner, and it still didn't help. Amazon is generally only competitive on big ticket items that you'd get free shipping on anyway. So I found Prime to be worthless.
- mnm1 9y ago
  For me, Amazon by far has been the worst. Closing my account for buying too many things (and inevitably returning a tiny fraction of them because they were fake/shitty quality as most Amazon products) is the most insane thing I've ever experienced. This while I was paying for Prime. The only thing they didn't do is threaten to sue me, but stealing my membership fee is pretty on par with that.
- dabernathy89 9y ago
  customer service, sure. but delivery.... eh. A few weeks ago my brother ordered a tripod and got a toilet instead. Someone I follow on Twitter ordered an Xbox and got.... Capri Suns[1]. https://twitter.com/StefMichalak/status/928174251395469317 https://twitter.com/StefMichalak/status/928174251395469317
mrtksn 9y ago
Actually, some of the biggest companies ever are known for their top notch customer service: Apple and Amazon.
crankylinuxuser 9y ago
This is SOO true. I ordered some circuit boards from Seeedstudio (good and cheap board fab, btw). I paid extra for DHL to get them quicker. I submitted my boards to Seeed (Shenzhen) October 10. On Oct 16, said they were shipped to DHL. Awesome. Told DHL via their webapp and text messaging that "I do not need signature. Drop at doorstep". 10 boards were a whopping $5. Guaranteed delivery by 19'th, cause thats what I paid extra for. So what does the fucknut idiot delivery driver do? "Did not deliver because no signature". I was fucking furious. I called their support line, and "we'll try to deliver tomorrow" ~~~ for WHAT? The idiot to say AGAIN that no signature, did not deliver? Uh huh, tell them to get their ass back right now and drop it off. Their claim was "They can only ask". BTW, their systems noted both my previous "I dont need signature" authorization, along with the text message responses saying the same. Well, it turns out that Twitter is good for other things, like complaining loudly. So I reached out to the 4 contacts linked to DHL, and included my package#. I got one of their US VP's on there. Wouldn'tya know, they had the authority to tell the idiot driver to get back and deliver. Who knows when I would have gotten my boards. But I certainly know how to bypass 'consumer firewalls'. I brought Seeed into it as well, by mentioning them with DHL. Evidently, squeezing the B2B may have worked, I really don't know.
- mcv 9y ago
  Public shaming seems to get you the best customer service. We need to use that more often.
  - animal531 9y ago
    Hard disagree on the 2nd point. It seems that needing to reach out to social media to get normal business processes to work has become the default. Now I need to actively be registered on N social media sites and harass the company in question until such time as they bother to respond, instead of having just had to connect with the company and directly resolve the issue.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      "We need to use it more" doesn't mean we should have to use it more, just that's the most effective avenue we do have left.
mcv 9y ago
Waiting at home specifically for stuff to be delivered or picked up is insane. Let me pick it up and send it at the post office. Or at some other convenient nearby location (supermarkets are getting popular for this, although I recently had to pick something up at a paint store(?)). Standard Dutch mail often leaves undeliverable packages with neighbours, which is great when you live in a good neighbourhood with good neighbours who are home a lot, and perhaps not so great when you don't. But skipping work for this is stupid and unreasonable.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
  This is how it works in Sweden, where all post offices are now integrated with grocery stores. I’m not even sure the typical package above a certain size has the possibility to go to your doorstep, it basically just goes to the nearest supermarket.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
musage 9y ago
> what that's potentially worth in terms of wasted effort, lost orders and customer hostility. I agree with all of the above but wanted to underline this. Because it snowballs so much. First call they explain the problem. Second call they explain how they explained the problem to someone before, how instead they understood X and did Y. Third call... and so on. Add to that long waiting times and it compounds even more. I did work in customer service and while I loved the people I talked to for the most part, it was really obvious that they were so nice to me because I was simply 100% frank, which was unexpected for them. And it was kinda heartbreaking how many thanked me just for listening, and not deflecting any blame, or just pointing to the EULA or whatever, but treating them like a normal person -- even though I really couldn't fix their problem, just agree that it sucks and wish them a nice day and mean it. I always tried but in many cases there was just nothing I could do except tell them all I know, and how sure I am about it. The bar was so incredibly low. When I offered people to call them back to follow up on a problem, they always were surprised when I actually did. Officially, I would have to ask permission for every outbound call, but I simply decided that that would just make it take even longer in total, so I did that once. I just made sure I was there to solve problems not chit chat, and then did what I considered necessary, not what people who didn't even talk with customers thought might be good. And when calling other departments, I also encountered people who said "you know, officially it would be X, but I think I can fix this", and they did. But it was a total crap shoot, sometimes they just made it worse or said they'd do something end then not do anything. Once I told a coach that if the bread he eats were made as sloppily as he had suggested to me I should handle a specific problem (that is, hand it off in exactly the same way that happened 3 times before, knowing it would resolve nothing but make it someone else's problem), he would be dead in 3 months. He threw a fit and dragged me to my team leader, who had my back - a month later I hear I have a "solution rate" (some customers were asked after the call to rate friendliness etc. and if their problem was solved) of 66%, twice above the average. You might say I had ignored "orders" because I considered them bad, and my results had proven me correct. It didn't change anything about the process, but it did give me leg room if you will. At the end of the day I did the job the way I did it because I thought, if I'm going to be a drone for shitty pay, at least I want to be able to sleep at night, right? The job simply wasn't worth squirming and lying all day when I could try to make a little difference at least to that one person who had to ask me for assistance after some awfully long waiting period. But it ended up being fun and meaningful I wouldn't have imagined beforehand, and if I had just followed official suggestions and marketing materials, it would have turned out so differently, I would have learned nothing and it would have just been this shitty job I once had. I don't believe it saves money. Maybe in the short term for the one company or a few execs in it or their shareholders, but in aggregate, it's just a waste. Call centers should simply fulfill some standards for the work and then get paid by the hour, not by call. That's all it would take, people who are in this job would mostly prefer being able to make a good job. During breaks we always used to share stories about customers on some freakish odyssey because of fucking $company. I'm sure there's also people who enjoy what little power they have over helpless callers, but if the incentives were aligned properly, they'd be gone before you can say "welcome to X, my name is Y, how can I help you?" :P Most complaints I heard from customers, aside long waiting times, unfriendly treatment or outright incompetence, were that they didn't get feedback and had no single point of contact. Like, one person at the company who is assigned with following up on that problem until it's fixed. How would that not be flat out better? It takes 30 seconds to try to reach a customer. Just do that until you reach them, or you see something in their file indicating they called on their own and the issue is solved. Have a mechanism in place for sickness, quitting the job etc, done? Why is that hard? How is the current way better in any shape or form? If I've ever seen anything ripe for disruption, it's call centers. Talk about pain.
listentojohan 9y ago
After a lengthy lengthy process, I recently only got things moving forward with UPS, after emailing the CEO directly (found the email online, and briefly listed the situation). Soon after I got two calls, and it was fixed relatively fast (still had to follow up twice...).
dharma1 9y ago
Amazon. I would rather order from there than from anywhere else if it's available on Amazon. They win at ease/speed of delivery and fantastic customer service, and usually price too - which means they own online retail. The only thing they don't have an edge on is food and used items (although they are trying) and certain things directly from China.
AJRF 9y ago
> I have never, ever dealt with any above mid-sized company that handles customer service and delivery well Apple
- artimaeis 9y ago
  Much as I like Apple I'm not sure they handle the situation described better than any competitor: > "A courier claims they called at your house and got no answer, even though you were in and they didn't. You call customer services, but they have no way at all to contact the courier and tell them to go back and try again. Even if they're only two minutes down the road. The system deliberately puts a firewall between the reps and the delivery infrastructure, because any kind of ad-hoc action to resolve customer issues interferes with the logistics planning for the day's deliveries." If UPS claims they knocked and you didn't answer there's nothing more Apple can do than to tell you to wait for tomorrow. Their customer service is genuinely great - but the firewall definitely exists between the shipper and the deliverer.
  - pfranz 9y ago
    I think any large company works and coordinates with another large company if it's advantageous to them. Amazon works closely with USPS to drop items as close and convenient for USPS. Netflix famously worked with USPS on their DVD envelope design and I believe they even upgraded many USPS sorting machines because it was in their business interest. I would believe Apple does the same (there's a sibling thread where UPS said they'd swing back by their house in 15m after missing a delivery of an Apple product--may be a coincidence, though).
louhike 9y ago
The thing is most couriers have orders to do it like this to go faster, even though it is not assumed publicly. So if it happened one time with a company, it will probably go on.
detaro 9y ago
The best seems to be to hand off the hard parts to smaller organisations and allow you to talk to those organisations (technically, the local delivery driver likely is a contractor, but you don't have a direct line or relationship with them). E.g. when getting warranty repairs for my Thinkpad, dealing with the central Lenovo organisation wasn't great, but once they accepted "customer device has an issue" they pass it off to local service partner, and those (in my experience) deal with issues quite well. And if you don't have on-site support, some repair places take your device and handle the warranty communication for you (and have an established relationship with Lenovo making that easier). Probably not the cheapest possible setup for them though.
mstade 9y ago
Mostly I'd agree with you, but milage varies. I for one have never had anything but stellar support from Apple, but I know people who've had nothing but struggles. GitHub has the best support I've ever encountered, both as a typical customer and as an enterprise customer – they put everyone else to shame in my book. But again, I hear stories from others who've experienced otherwise. Courier services as you mention though seem to have terrible service across the board. It doesn't matter if they are big or small, this seems to be some sort of hard rule almost.
macintux 9y ago
I've addressed nearly every gripe in this thread by getting a mailbox at a local UPS store. Sure, it's inconvenient and some extra money each month, but I never have packages stolen and there's always a signature available. The most annoying part is when I deal with someone who makes it hard to deliver to a different address than my home (looking at you, Verizon) but it's always achievable.
gjem97 9y ago
It's funny, because I actually had this happen exactly once. I had ordered an iPhone 3G for delivery on the first day of its availiability. I was out of the house and rushing back to meet the UPS guy, but missed him. Very disappointed, I called UPS and they said "ok, he will swing back around in 15 minutes, does that work?" I remember being astonished, because as you point out, this never happens. I chalked it up to Apple putting pressure on UPS to deliver all the phones that day. Maybe even providing monetary rewards if over x% of the phones were delivered that day?
- astura 9y ago
  UPS has been good to me in that regard. I once had a package that needed signature that I wasn't home for. He left the slip on my door. About six hour or so later, towards the end of the driver's shift, he was driving by my house again while I was getting home. He saw a car pull into my driveway so he stopped and brought out the package and gave it to me while I was getting out of the car. Said "I tried to deliver this earlier and nobody was home." Very nice of him to 1) remember and 2) actually care. I have an aquatintance who works at UPS and loves it. YMMV though.
DarronWyke 9y ago
Honestly, a lot of the CS/delivery issues are somewhat dependent upon the consumer market that the company targets. Some communities are very word-of-mouth and reputation based. One of the ones I'm involved in is the firearm community, which is very much that way. Places that have bad CS or delivery issues get lambasted and are very affected by said issues, and those that go out of their way to help and assist their customers are hoisted far above.
donatj 9y ago
Weirdly I have found Amazons support good right up until I tried to exchange a Kindle Paperwhite. I’ve returned a fair amount of things to amazon. I had previously even received actual incorrect products in the packaging of the product I ordered (someone probably returned them to amazon as a scam) and I was able to return them without question. Easy peasy. When I tried to return a Kindle Paperwhite that froze up every couple hours however that was a different story. I wasn’t allowed to just return it, I had to talk to support. First call they had me powercycle it and told me to call back if it froze again. It did. I had done this myself to get it unfrozen many times. Second call they had me factory reset it and call back if it froze again. It did. I had already done this myself. Third call they ask “is it frozen right now?” It wasn’t. They tell me to call back when it is frozen. Fourth call, I have it frozen, they ask me what I see and tell me to tap things to which I explain I cannot, it’s frozen! They then have me power cycle it and try to insist that that fixed the issue. I explain no, I have had this happen like 40 times now. I explain the process I’ve been through with support. Finally they agree to give me a return authorization!
- beerbaron23 9y ago
  What is happening is that they are telling you to restart it and to call back later because that's there main goal, to get you off the phone asap in any way possible. Most of the time you get the "authorization" when the call center is not as busy and the rep is allowed to take time (with you on hold) to fill out the return info and follow through with what they should have done during the first call. I wouldn't get angry at the rep, it's the managers that pressure this kind of behavior in full force, if it's busy and you are on the phone for more then 4 mins, a manger comes over and stands behind you and tells you what to say to end the call even if it doesn't make sense and guaranties the customer has to call back... To get the best level of service you have to call when it's not so busy. Never call on a Monday or early in the morning, that's when it's the most busy. Slow times are Wed-Fri 1:30pm to about 6pm then anytime after 10pm. Sundays are a good bet if the place is open, although usually most of the reps that work on the weekend are new/less skilled hence prone to make more mistakes.
pc86 9y ago
Why are you calling Company customer service for Courier problems? Yes, they'll try to help, but a CS rep at Nintendo (or any employee, for that matter) isn't going to be able to do anything to get FedEx back to your house when they've already left. And can you imagine the logistics nightmare of multiple delivery attempts to the same address on the same day? For every courier that says they called when they didn't, there are people who will go shopping and come back at 3pm to see the slip, then call and complain. I've had it happen to me where I'm sitting 4 feet away from my front door and I go out to find a slip on the door when they never knocked or rang the bell, but it's unreasonable to expect them to turn around and bring it back, just as it's unreasonable to think that maybe I just didn't hear it even though I was right there.
coding123 9y ago
This is not fully true. Amazon used DHL with me once - they didn't deliver because of a code/gate thing I used to live at. I called Amazon and they got the DHL DRIVER on the phone - me, Amazon customer support, DHL Driver on a single phone call. Amazon CS fucking rocks sometimes. So yes, there are companies that can go the extra mile and seriously dial up the heat on the delivery company. I think the best CS will call and deal with shipping issues. Crappy companies will have none of that.
- kerbalspacepro 9y ago
  Amazon and Apple are the two biggest companies I can think of that does awesome CS, and that's because they do it in-house and they rely on consumer lock-in. If an Apple fanboy or an Amazon Prime member have a super-bad experience, they will leave and get locked in somewhere else.
mring33621 9y ago
Overstock.com has excellent customer service. We order a lot from them and when something arrives damaged or with missing parts, they always have handled it quickly. (I am not affiliated with Overstock)
kelukelugames 9y ago
I've been trying to buy a Herman Miller desk for the past few months. It's a quagmire and I'm still table-less. You'd think a two thousand dollar table would come with some customer service.
beerbaron23 9y ago
having worked for many large companies in call centers I'll tell you why this happens, In the call center, when you call in, our number one goal is to get you off the phone ASAP. Every major corp I've worked for never had a way to tell the status of the delivery via their in house software. In times like this we check the notes to see when the last time you called and just keep telling you to wait longer, say "it's sent" even though we have no way of knowing this, we are told flatout to lie. The major reason is that delivery is outsourced to another company, who then themselves outsources it again to other drivers who will work for the least amount of money possible. So there is no direct way of contacting them or even knowing which sub company is doing the delivery. All the managers are concerned about is you taking the next call. I have gotten in trouble multiple times for going out of my way to make sure the customer got everything completed properly. Soon as the customer hangs up your headset automatically takes another call, so you don't have time to fill out extra paper work to get what the customer actually needs completed cause you are told to do that "On your own time" and since you get paid minimum wage you don't give a shit if things get done or not due to the poisoned environment. Now say a real incident happens where you must call the delivery driver, it CAN be done, just that they never tell the employees that because it takes "too long". Basically you call the 3rd party delivery company and tell them what's up and then it's their job to relay the message (if they even know who is doing the delivery!) So only under special circumstances can that be done. No one cares about wasted effort or customer satisfaction, as long the hold times are low and they can employ the minimal amount of workers then they are doing there jobs... Another thing, when you cancel your account and the company owes you money, you tell the customer 6-8 weeks to receive the refund. Now if the customer gets really angry and makes a big deal about it, then there is a little button we click on the screen that mails out the refund to the customer the next day! So why do they do that? because of all the interest they make with your money sitting longer in their bank account. This company had 3 internal accounts that had ~2 Million dollars in each of them, filled with customers money just waiting around to be sent out when the automated timer printed out a batch... All the corporations I've worked for all operated like this, whether I was paid minimum wage or a decent 20$ an hour. I've only worked at one place where they genuinely cared about the customer, but it was small enough in that you had direct communication to everyone, but that place closed cause customer service costs too much money...
Sophistifunk 9y ago
Apple does it great. You get accurate (usually with any errors in favour of pessimism) estimates of lead times and delivery dates, and with AppleCare servicing or replacement of items has always gone super-smooth for me.
pfranz 9y ago
Apple and Amazon have been the exceptions for me. My mom ordered something for me off Amazon, but typed in the wrong address. I walked to that address and they denied receiving any packages. From their support page, they'll call you and you'll be speaking to someone within 20seconds. They sent a replacement without question and without charging (the item was less than $50). Other times, with other issues, they'll ship you a replacement and ask you to keep the original. I bought an Apple laptop recently. It shipped with Sierra, but I wanted to start with a clean install of High Sierra. After installing stuff I had a suspicion something wasn't compatible with High Sierra and wanted to downgrade. Frustratingly, they removed the download in the App Store. The first person I talked to on the phone walked me through an Internet Recovery--and knew the difference between installing from the Recovery Partition (which is the OS installed, High Sierra) and Internet Recovery (which installs the OS the hardware shipped with, Sierra). That, and the ability to talk me through a series of screens (including partitioning) over the phone is no easy task. The same person called me back 2 hours later to confirm everything finished installing. I think for most other larger companies, support is a huge expense with little upside. It's cheaper to waste your time then their's. The most cost effective thing to do is hire a small number of very polite people and give them the power to do nothing.

petercooper 9y ago

I have never, ever dealt with any above mid-sized company that handles customer service and delivery well. I have. Amazon. Over 15 years now and flawless every time.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
That's because they fuck over their sellers. I tried to sell a modem which I had previously purchased through Amazon. The modem came both as a bundle and by itself. I listed it correctly as purchasing the modem only, listed it "like new" (when really it was basically new, not removed from the box). It was actually the lowest price you could get it used. Someone bought it, shipped it to them faster than necessary. About a week later I got a notice from him saying that he wanted a refund because he had thought that he was getting the bundle (not just the modem as it was listed). Why they thought they were getting the bundle like new for that price is beyond me, but whatever. I rejected the refund because it was their mistake and it would have been too much work to be worth it. Sensible, yeah? They initiated a claim against my account and Amazon withdrew the money (it was actually great timing - overdraft). The claim said the the item condition was wrong (it was not). You are able to contest any claim like that so I took the time to explain what had happened and why the issue wasn't even about the item's condition. I don't know if they just didn't bother reading it or if all responses are handled with robots because I get a very superficial answer that didn't even acknowledge what had happened. I repeated the process in order to try to talk to another person, wrote up another account of what happened (including the new non response), and got the same kind of non-response (you must list items under the correct condition, blah, blah, blah) from a different rep. Basically, they just didn't bother answering me. I'd already wasted way more time than necessary on what I thought was gonna be a little extra cash, so now some dude in Minnesota got my modem for free, and I got an overdraft for my trouble. That's a cool trick. Got no clue what's going on over there but I'll never sell anything there again if I can avoid it. Worst customer experience ever.
- shiven 9y ago
  Worst seller experience ever. FTFY. You are not the customer, just a seller. You don’t matter. The “Amazon smile” is for customers only.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- firefixfox 9y ago
  Exact same thing happens on eBay, at least here in the UK.
  - aeorgnoieang 9y ago
    In the US too, and probably everywhere else as well.
nonamechicken 9y ago
Probably my worst experience was with Amazon. Ordered a big sofa sized furniture. Got wrong color which was cheaper. Asked them to adjust the price since I didnt want to go through the hassle of shipping it back. No. The guy just said "we dont price match, you can sent it back and order again". Not even a sorry. I got so frustrated at his response, it ruined my day. Tried twice more with similar response. I sent it back, ordered again (at a lower price than my original order). In Amazon's defence, this items price was dropping heavily during that period. But I wasnt asking them to give me new price. Because of this incident plus Amazon taking 4-5 days to just start shipping and the news about fake goods, Amazon is no longer my first preference.
- wolco 9y ago
  I ordered a small item 5 dollars item came was different tried to refund but wanted me to pay to ship back the product which costs more than the product. I gave up.
astura 9y ago
Amazon support is absolutely terrible. Amazon seller support is even worse. I mean, the worst. Only matched by health insurance companies. The huge problem with Amazon support is everyone I've ever interacted with (besides that one time I got forwarded to a supervisor) either have a fundamental lack an understanding of the English language or lack reading comprehension (or listening if phone support). They also won't or can't spend any significant time on any one customer inquiry, they need to move onto the next. On the buyers side they understand how to refund an order which they do readily, ship items, say you can keep items that are errors, maybe some account stuff, and that's basically it. If you need them to do anything else that requires them to understand your inquiry it's an uphill battle. Basically, you get terrible support if your inquiry can't be solved by quickly pressing the "refund" button or the "ship item" button. I guess most buyers usually only need those two buttons though. I actually think that's part of why they have such a big problem with counterfeits (and other issues). If someone complains about a counterfeit some low paid employee who doesn't really understand the problem just presses "refund order," the customer stops complaining, and the systemic issues remain. I have a nightmare Amazon seller support story, but I won't go into it for fear of spiking my blood pressure to dangerous levels. It was only resolved by me finally getting forwarded to a supervisor, who, finally, understood English.
- simias 9y ago
  That's my experience as well. As long as all you want is return faulty/not-needed-after-all articles then Amazon is great. Never ever had a hiccup in 10 years and I order a lot of stuff. However if your request is a little more specific and doesn't fit neatly in whatever scripts they're using then it's a bit of a mess. I mainly use amazon.fr so I've interacted with the french support but like you they had a rather thick accent and seemed to have trouble understanding me at times even though I did my best to speak slowly and clearly. In the end I could see that they kept reverting to the script and where a bit lost when I tried to steer things away from it. I just wanted to complain about a transporter who kept failing to deliver my parcels so it wasn't a big deal but I think it would've been pretty difficult to interact with this (nonetheless very kind) person if I had something a little trickier and more important to figure out with them.
b4lancesh33t 9y ago
Yep. Other replies about bad selling experiences notwithstanding, as a buyer, Amazon's experiences are mechanically great. They might sacrifice a seller on an altar every week, and that would be sad, but it makes your statement no less true.
chairmanwow 9y ago
I 100% agree. The day that I became a lifelong Amazon customer was when I mistakenly ordered a mattress to the wrong address via Prime. I noticed the mistake some 28 hours after placing the order. I nearly said that I called them to tell them about my mistake, but that isn't true. I typed in my number online AND THEY CALLED ME when an operator was available. The operator quickly calmed me down and told it was "nothing to worry about". She cancelled the shipment of the mattress going to the wrong side of the US and placed an order for a replacement within 2 minutes of learning about the problem. On top of that, without being asked, she upgraded my replacement to 1 day shipping FOR FREE so that my order would still arrive by the original delivery date. Since I screwed up in such a ridiculous way, that I would have fully expected to have gotten slammed with a return shipping fee, a shipping fee for the replacement, and even some kind of BS replacement fee. But Amazon took the bullet and provided me the the best customer service I ever could have hoped for, which prevented me from having to sleep on the ground for even one extra night.
- Talyen42 9y ago
  I agree, it's great for the consumer. But amazon didn't take the bullet. The seller of the mattress took the bullet. Amazon didn't lose a penny. Sellers just have to assume a 10% loss of gross margin due to issues like this. It's not the end of the world, but that's where the cost is.
  - aeorgnoieang 9y ago
    > Sellers just have to assume a 10% loss of gross margin due to issues like this. It's not the end of the world, but that's where the cost is. This explains why individuals selling individual items, or a small number of items, can get so burned too. You need sufficient volume to cover all the inevitable bullets you have to swallow.
  - jamaicahest 9y ago
    >Sellers just have to assume a 10% loss of gross margin due to issues like this. It's not the end of the world, but that's where the cost is. Cost of doing business. Reminds me of the book "What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars" where Jim Paul describes how someone trading in lumber doesn't cry about 20% of the wood being useless, he knows 20% will be useless and he writes that up under cost of doing business. Just like refunds and customer support are a cost of doing business.
matwood 9y ago
I would agree until they started using the USPS.
_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
Customer since before 1999. Only if everything goes into the two categories: 1.) send again 2.) reimburse/take back Everything else doesn't work at all. I had a phone from Amazon, empty box delivered, they had no way to stop the contract, weeks of pain, my threat getting the police involved solved the problem. Amazon Logistics didn't deliver important stuff with evening express several times, Amazon did nothing. One time they tried to deliver an order at 10pm (!). And I had a 10-minute discussion with support who told me it was deliver 10am until they reread the entry and agreed it was 10:07pm - at an office address. Support stuff lied to me and put lies in their support system.
- werdnapk 9y ago
  I recently received an empty box from Amazon. No more than 5 minutes with their online support and they had created a new order to re-send the item with their fastest shipping option. Easiest customer support experience I've ever had honestly.
  - _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
    I'm suprised, a phone with an attached contract?
    - OoooooooO 9y ago
      It's usually the other way around (at least in germany / europe). You "buy" a telephone contract and get the smartphone on top (priced into the contract of course).
pjc50 9y ago
Amazon contract deliveries to organisations like Yodel, who you can't contact directly and have exactly the same problems with failing to deliver or chucking parcels over the fence etc.
- kawsper 9y ago
  Everytime I see my package is being delivered by Yodel I just sighs, they always find a way to fuck up an order. But to be fair, it seems like Amazon, are no longer working with Yodel, I have not seen any item I have from bought from Amazon.co.uk to be delivered by Yodel for at least two years.
  - kennydude 9y ago
    Amazon just use "Amazon Logistics" which I refuse to pay for any random guy with a van to deliver stuff randomly anytime up to 10pm
wyager 9y ago
I’ve mostly had good experiences, but once I had a battery charger fail and destroy some batteries. I spent over an hour on the phone while the CSR tried (and failed) to look up how voltage worked so they could blame the failure on me instead of just sending me the $60 order again. Just gave up after ~90 minutes.
kharms 9y ago
I cancelled my prime account after a string of issues, the worst of which I’ll summarize. I bought a $1300 camera, received a $500 camera. Easy error, easy fix. I wish. I had to call twice to initiate the return, call twice more to find out why a moth later I had neither a camera nor my money. Turns out the return was silently rejected. Why? “Wrong item returned.” No kidding! Had to call a fifth time to finally get this resolved, but at the end of that call I realized I was paying amazing $100 annually to fix issues that they caused.
squeaky-clean 9y ago
I have years of free Prime because my 2 day orders never come in 2 days. At least they give you something when they mess up, but they do mess up a lot.
gmiller123456 9y ago
>I have. Amazon. Over 15 years now and flawless every time. Wow, I have a completely different experience. I had been a Prime member up until about 2 years ago when my last 10 out of 10 deliveries arrived late. Since I noticed Amazon wasn't really competitive with other sellers on E-Bay, etc, I only used them when I actually needed something fast. So, moral of the story is I paid more for something to get it sooner, and it still didn't help. Amazon is generally only competitive on big ticket items that you'd get free shipping on anyway. So I found Prime to be worthless.
mnm1 9y ago
For me, Amazon by far has been the worst. Closing my account for buying too many things (and inevitably returning a tiny fraction of them because they were fake/shitty quality as most Amazon products) is the most insane thing I've ever experienced. This while I was paying for Prime. The only thing they didn't do is threaten to sue me, but stealing my membership fee is pretty on par with that.
dabernathy89 9y ago
customer service, sure. but delivery.... eh. A few weeks ago my brother ordered a tripod and got a toilet instead. Someone I follow on Twitter ordered an Xbox and got.... Capri Suns[1]. https://twitter.com/StefMichalak/status/928174251395469317 https://twitter.com/StefMichalak/status/928174251395469317

mrtksn 9y ago

Actually, some of the biggest companies ever are known for their top notch customer service: Apple and Amazon.

crankylinuxuser 9y ago

This is SOO true. I ordered some circuit boards from Seeedstudio (good and cheap board fab, btw). I paid extra for DHL to get them quicker. I submitted my boards to Seeed (Shenzhen) October 10. On Oct 16, said they were shipped to DHL. Awesome. Told DHL via their webapp and text messaging that "I do not need signature. Drop at doorstep". 10 boards were a whopping $5. Guaranteed delivery by 19'th, cause thats what I paid extra for. So what does the fucknut idiot delivery driver do? "Did not deliver because no signature". I was fucking furious. I called their support line, and "we'll try to deliver tomorrow" ~~~ for WHAT? The idiot to say AGAIN that no signature, did not deliver? Uh huh, tell them to get their ass back right now and drop it off. Their claim was "They can only ask". BTW, their systems noted both my previous "I dont need signature" authorization, along with the text message responses saying the same. Well, it turns out that Twitter is good for other things, like complaining loudly. So I reached out to the 4 contacts linked to DHL, and included my package#. I got one of their US VP's on there. Wouldn'tya know, they had the authority to tell the idiot driver to get back and deliver. Who knows when I would have gotten my boards. But I certainly know how to bypass 'consumer firewalls'. I brought Seeed into it as well, by mentioning them with DHL. Evidently, squeezing the B2B may have worked, I really don't know.

mcv 9y ago
Public shaming seems to get you the best customer service. We need to use that more often.
- animal531 9y ago
  Hard disagree on the 2nd point. It seems that needing to reach out to social media to get normal business processes to work has become the default. Now I need to actively be registered on N social media sites and harass the company in question until such time as they bother to respond, instead of having just had to connect with the company and directly resolve the issue.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    "We need to use it more" doesn't mean we should have to use it more, just that's the most effective avenue we do have left.

mcv 9y ago

Waiting at home specifically for stuff to be delivered or picked up is insane. Let me pick it up and send it at the post office. Or at some other convenient nearby location (supermarkets are getting popular for this, although I recently had to pick something up at a paint store(?)). Standard Dutch mail often leaves undeliverable packages with neighbours, which is great when you live in a good neighbourhood with good neighbours who are home a lot, and perhaps not so great when you don't. But skipping work for this is stupid and unreasonable.

SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
This is how it works in Sweden, where all post offices are now integrated with grocery stores. I’m not even sure the typical package above a certain size has the possibility to go to your doorstep, it basically just goes to the nearest supermarket.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

musage 9y ago

> what that's potentially worth in terms of wasted effort, lost orders and customer hostility. I agree with all of the above but wanted to underline this. Because it snowballs so much. First call they explain the problem. Second call they explain how they explained the problem to someone before, how instead they understood X and did Y. Third call... and so on. Add to that long waiting times and it compounds even more. I did work in customer service and while I loved the people I talked to for the most part, it was really obvious that they were so nice to me because I was simply 100% frank, which was unexpected for them. And it was kinda heartbreaking how many thanked me just for listening, and not deflecting any blame, or just pointing to the EULA or whatever, but treating them like a normal person -- even though I really couldn't fix their problem, just agree that it sucks and wish them a nice day and mean it. I always tried but in many cases there was just nothing I could do except tell them all I know, and how sure I am about it. The bar was so incredibly low. When I offered people to call them back to follow up on a problem, they always were surprised when I actually did. Officially, I would have to ask permission for every outbound call, but I simply decided that that would just make it take even longer in total, so I did that once. I just made sure I was there to solve problems not chit chat, and then did what I considered necessary, not what people who didn't even talk with customers thought might be good. And when calling other departments, I also encountered people who said "you know, officially it would be X, but I think I can fix this", and they did. But it was a total crap shoot, sometimes they just made it worse or said they'd do something end then not do anything. Once I told a coach that if the bread he eats were made as sloppily as he had suggested to me I should handle a specific problem (that is, hand it off in exactly the same way that happened 3 times before, knowing it would resolve nothing but make it someone else's problem), he would be dead in 3 months. He threw a fit and dragged me to my team leader, who had my back - a month later I hear I have a "solution rate" (some customers were asked after the call to rate friendliness etc. and if their problem was solved) of 66%, twice above the average. You might say I had ignored "orders" because I considered them bad, and my results had proven me correct. It didn't change anything about the process, but it did give me leg room if you will. At the end of the day I did the job the way I did it because I thought, if I'm going to be a drone for shitty pay, at least I want to be able to sleep at night, right? The job simply wasn't worth squirming and lying all day when I could try to make a little difference at least to that one person who had to ask me for assistance after some awfully long waiting period. But it ended up being fun and meaningful I wouldn't have imagined beforehand, and if I had just followed official suggestions and marketing materials, it would have turned out so differently, I would have learned nothing and it would have just been this shitty job I once had. I don't believe it saves money. Maybe in the short term for the one company or a few execs in it or their shareholders, but in aggregate, it's just a waste. Call centers should simply fulfill some standards for the work and then get paid by the hour, not by call. That's all it would take, people who are in this job would mostly prefer being able to make a good job. During breaks we always used to share stories about customers on some freakish odyssey because of fucking $company. I'm sure there's also people who enjoy what little power they have over helpless callers, but if the incentives were aligned properly, they'd be gone before you can say "welcome to X, my name is Y, how can I help you?" :P Most complaints I heard from customers, aside long waiting times, unfriendly treatment or outright incompetence, were that they didn't get feedback and had no single point of contact. Like, one person at the company who is assigned with following up on that problem until it's fixed. How would that not be flat out better? It takes 30 seconds to try to reach a customer. Just do that until you reach them, or you see something in their file indicating they called on their own and the issue is solved. Have a mechanism in place for sickness, quitting the job etc, done? Why is that hard? How is the current way better in any shape or form? If I've ever seen anything ripe for disruption, it's call centers. Talk about pain.

listentojohan 9y ago

After a lengthy lengthy process, I recently only got things moving forward with UPS, after emailing the CEO directly (found the email online, and briefly listed the situation). Soon after I got two calls, and it was fixed relatively fast (still had to follow up twice...).

dharma1 9y ago

Amazon. I would rather order from there than from anywhere else if it's available on Amazon. They win at ease/speed of delivery and fantastic customer service, and usually price too - which means they own online retail. The only thing they don't have an edge on is food and used items (although they are trying) and certain things directly from China.

AJRF 9y ago

> I have never, ever dealt with any above mid-sized company that handles customer service and delivery well Apple

artimaeis 9y ago
Much as I like Apple I'm not sure they handle the situation described better than any competitor: > "A courier claims they called at your house and got no answer, even though you were in and they didn't. You call customer services, but they have no way at all to contact the courier and tell them to go back and try again. Even if they're only two minutes down the road. The system deliberately puts a firewall between the reps and the delivery infrastructure, because any kind of ad-hoc action to resolve customer issues interferes with the logistics planning for the day's deliveries." If UPS claims they knocked and you didn't answer there's nothing more Apple can do than to tell you to wait for tomorrow. Their customer service is genuinely great - but the firewall definitely exists between the shipper and the deliverer.
- pfranz 9y ago
  I think any large company works and coordinates with another large company if it's advantageous to them. Amazon works closely with USPS to drop items as close and convenient for USPS. Netflix famously worked with USPS on their DVD envelope design and I believe they even upgraded many USPS sorting machines because it was in their business interest. I would believe Apple does the same (there's a sibling thread where UPS said they'd swing back by their house in 15m after missing a delivery of an Apple product--may be a coincidence, though).

louhike 9y ago

The thing is most couriers have orders to do it like this to go faster, even though it is not assumed publicly. So if it happened one time with a company, it will probably go on.

detaro 9y ago

The best seems to be to hand off the hard parts to smaller organisations and allow you to talk to those organisations (technically, the local delivery driver likely is a contractor, but you don't have a direct line or relationship with them). E.g. when getting warranty repairs for my Thinkpad, dealing with the central Lenovo organisation wasn't great, but once they accepted "customer device has an issue" they pass it off to local service partner, and those (in my experience) deal with issues quite well. And if you don't have on-site support, some repair places take your device and handle the warranty communication for you (and have an established relationship with Lenovo making that easier). Probably not the cheapest possible setup for them though.

mstade 9y ago

Mostly I'd agree with you, but milage varies. I for one have never had anything but stellar support from Apple, but I know people who've had nothing but struggles. GitHub has the best support I've ever encountered, both as a typical customer and as an enterprise customer – they put everyone else to shame in my book. But again, I hear stories from others who've experienced otherwise. Courier services as you mention though seem to have terrible service across the board. It doesn't matter if they are big or small, this seems to be some sort of hard rule almost.

macintux 9y ago

I've addressed nearly every gripe in this thread by getting a mailbox at a local UPS store. Sure, it's inconvenient and some extra money each month, but I never have packages stolen and there's always a signature available. The most annoying part is when I deal with someone who makes it hard to deliver to a different address than my home (looking at you, Verizon) but it's always achievable.

gjem97 9y ago

It's funny, because I actually had this happen exactly once. I had ordered an iPhone 3G for delivery on the first day of its availiability. I was out of the house and rushing back to meet the UPS guy, but missed him. Very disappointed, I called UPS and they said "ok, he will swing back around in 15 minutes, does that work?" I remember being astonished, because as you point out, this never happens. I chalked it up to Apple putting pressure on UPS to deliver all the phones that day. Maybe even providing monetary rewards if over x% of the phones were delivered that day?

astura 9y ago
UPS has been good to me in that regard. I once had a package that needed signature that I wasn't home for. He left the slip on my door. About six hour or so later, towards the end of the driver's shift, he was driving by my house again while I was getting home. He saw a car pull into my driveway so he stopped and brought out the package and gave it to me while I was getting out of the car. Said "I tried to deliver this earlier and nobody was home." Very nice of him to 1) remember and 2) actually care. I have an aquatintance who works at UPS and loves it. YMMV though.

DarronWyke 9y ago

Honestly, a lot of the CS/delivery issues are somewhat dependent upon the consumer market that the company targets. Some communities are very word-of-mouth and reputation based. One of the ones I'm involved in is the firearm community, which is very much that way. Places that have bad CS or delivery issues get lambasted and are very affected by said issues, and those that go out of their way to help and assist their customers are hoisted far above.

donatj 9y ago

Weirdly I have found Amazons support good right up until I tried to exchange a Kindle Paperwhite. I’ve returned a fair amount of things to amazon. I had previously even received actual incorrect products in the packaging of the product I ordered (someone probably returned them to amazon as a scam) and I was able to return them without question. Easy peasy. When I tried to return a Kindle Paperwhite that froze up every couple hours however that was a different story. I wasn’t allowed to just return it, I had to talk to support. First call they had me powercycle it and told me to call back if it froze again. It did. I had done this myself to get it unfrozen many times. Second call they had me factory reset it and call back if it froze again. It did. I had already done this myself. Third call they ask “is it frozen right now?” It wasn’t. They tell me to call back when it is frozen. Fourth call, I have it frozen, they ask me what I see and tell me to tap things to which I explain I cannot, it’s frozen! They then have me power cycle it and try to insist that that fixed the issue. I explain no, I have had this happen like 40 times now. I explain the process I’ve been through with support. Finally they agree to give me a return authorization!

beerbaron23 9y ago
What is happening is that they are telling you to restart it and to call back later because that's there main goal, to get you off the phone asap in any way possible. Most of the time you get the "authorization" when the call center is not as busy and the rep is allowed to take time (with you on hold) to fill out the return info and follow through with what they should have done during the first call. I wouldn't get angry at the rep, it's the managers that pressure this kind of behavior in full force, if it's busy and you are on the phone for more then 4 mins, a manger comes over and stands behind you and tells you what to say to end the call even if it doesn't make sense and guaranties the customer has to call back... To get the best level of service you have to call when it's not so busy. Never call on a Monday or early in the morning, that's when it's the most busy. Slow times are Wed-Fri 1:30pm to about 6pm then anytime after 10pm. Sundays are a good bet if the place is open, although usually most of the reps that work on the weekend are new/less skilled hence prone to make more mistakes.

pc86 9y ago

Why are you calling Company customer service for Courier problems? Yes, they'll try to help, but a CS rep at Nintendo (or any employee, for that matter) isn't going to be able to do anything to get FedEx back to your house when they've already left. And can you imagine the logistics nightmare of multiple delivery attempts to the same address on the same day? For every courier that says they called when they didn't, there are people who will go shopping and come back at 3pm to see the slip, then call and complain. I've had it happen to me where I'm sitting 4 feet away from my front door and I go out to find a slip on the door when they never knocked or rang the bell, but it's unreasonable to expect them to turn around and bring it back, just as it's unreasonable to think that maybe I just didn't hear it even though I was right there.

coding123 9y ago

This is not fully true. Amazon used DHL with me once - they didn't deliver because of a code/gate thing I used to live at. I called Amazon and they got the DHL DRIVER on the phone - me, Amazon customer support, DHL Driver on a single phone call. Amazon CS fucking rocks sometimes. So yes, there are companies that can go the extra mile and seriously dial up the heat on the delivery company. I think the best CS will call and deal with shipping issues. Crappy companies will have none of that.

kerbalspacepro 9y ago
Amazon and Apple are the two biggest companies I can think of that does awesome CS, and that's because they do it in-house and they rely on consumer lock-in. If an Apple fanboy or an Amazon Prime member have a super-bad experience, they will leave and get locked in somewhere else.

mring33621 9y ago

Overstock.com has excellent customer service. We order a lot from them and when something arrives damaged or with missing parts, they always have handled it quickly. (I am not affiliated with Overstock)

kelukelugames 9y ago

I've been trying to buy a Herman Miller desk for the past few months. It's a quagmire and I'm still table-less. You'd think a two thousand dollar table would come with some customer service.

beerbaron23 9y ago

having worked for many large companies in call centers I'll tell you why this happens, In the call center, when you call in, our number one goal is to get you off the phone ASAP. Every major corp I've worked for never had a way to tell the status of the delivery via their in house software. In times like this we check the notes to see when the last time you called and just keep telling you to wait longer, say "it's sent" even though we have no way of knowing this, we are told flatout to lie. The major reason is that delivery is outsourced to another company, who then themselves outsources it again to other drivers who will work for the least amount of money possible. So there is no direct way of contacting them or even knowing which sub company is doing the delivery. All the managers are concerned about is you taking the next call. I have gotten in trouble multiple times for going out of my way to make sure the customer got everything completed properly. Soon as the customer hangs up your headset automatically takes another call, so you don't have time to fill out extra paper work to get what the customer actually needs completed cause you are told to do that "On your own time" and since you get paid minimum wage you don't give a shit if things get done or not due to the poisoned environment. Now say a real incident happens where you must call the delivery driver, it CAN be done, just that they never tell the employees that because it takes "too long". Basically you call the 3rd party delivery company and tell them what's up and then it's their job to relay the message (if they even know who is doing the delivery!) So only under special circumstances can that be done. No one cares about wasted effort or customer satisfaction, as long the hold times are low and they can employ the minimal amount of workers then they are doing there jobs... Another thing, when you cancel your account and the company owes you money, you tell the customer 6-8 weeks to receive the refund. Now if the customer gets really angry and makes a big deal about it, then there is a little button we click on the screen that mails out the refund to the customer the next day! So why do they do that? because of all the interest they make with your money sitting longer in their bank account. This company had 3 internal accounts that had ~2 Million dollars in each of them, filled with customers money just waiting around to be sent out when the automated timer printed out a batch... All the corporations I've worked for all operated like this, whether I was paid minimum wage or a decent 20$ an hour. I've only worked at one place where they genuinely cared about the customer, but it was small enough in that you had direct communication to everyone, but that place closed cause customer service costs too much money...

Sophistifunk 9y ago

Apple does it great. You get accurate (usually with any errors in favour of pessimism) estimates of lead times and delivery dates, and with AppleCare servicing or replacement of items has always gone super-smooth for me.

pfranz 9y ago

Apple and Amazon have been the exceptions for me. My mom ordered something for me off Amazon, but typed in the wrong address. I walked to that address and they denied receiving any packages. From their support page, they'll call you and you'll be speaking to someone within 20seconds. They sent a replacement without question and without charging (the item was less than $50). Other times, with other issues, they'll ship you a replacement and ask you to keep the original. I bought an Apple laptop recently. It shipped with Sierra, but I wanted to start with a clean install of High Sierra. After installing stuff I had a suspicion something wasn't compatible with High Sierra and wanted to downgrade. Frustratingly, they removed the download in the App Store. The first person I talked to on the phone walked me through an Internet Recovery--and knew the difference between installing from the Recovery Partition (which is the OS installed, High Sierra) and Internet Recovery (which installs the OS the hardware shipped with, Sierra). That, and the ability to talk me through a series of screens (including partitioning) over the phone is no easy task. The same person called me back 2 hours later to confirm everything finished installing. I think for most other larger companies, support is a huge expense with little upside. It's cheaper to waste your time then their's. The most cost effective thing to do is hire a small number of very polite people and give them the power to do nothing.