Getting it STRAIGHT

[Complaints.retail]

I will make it simple first and then you can read my whitterings and reasonings after.

CALL 0844 800 60 20 for products over £130 and over a month from purchase.


For many of you I can see you reluctance to say anything nice about retailers, especially when they are not trained or even their aftersales literature does not help consumers. But in a few cases I can see that the use of force and threats of court cases can be avoided.

imagine pcworld in the same respect as Tesco. They do not repair products instore, nor do they know much about them and so demanding instant repairs from tesco is like asking them to repair a microwave right there infront of you.

PCWorld do have a Techguys desk but without saying too much about their qualifications, ill say this. They are able to deal with software and upgrades. Yes they probably do know how to replace a faulty motherboard but they are not required to under the law.

the law states that a faulty product needs to be remedied under the same manufacturing standards and quality control as originally purchased. So it is recommended to be done by a fully certified repair agent.

I may start hearing you sigh thinking you know everything. But being certified by Microsoft or Intel through doing online exams is not the same as being certified by the manufacturers. So not everyone can repair products. I hear another sigh, well maybe because a multinational company have to be doubly careful about doing repairs compared to independant computer specialist because billions of pounds are involved.

[Complaints.retail]

As an additional note I personally have issues with their call centres and instore staff, I am putting together a patition website to get retailers like Tesco, PCWorld and even Dell to improve their standards.

Basically anyone selling technology.

The patition will be to get these companies to fully vet their new employees and have adequete training centres and policies.

The website is currently not online due to laws about liable and copyright use of their logo's. So until I wrinkle out all of the legal jargon to ensure the website survives, I am just researching different complaint websites and forums.

PCWorld do come highly UNreccomended from friends and family but I do not believe all complaints are thought about or dealt with properly by consumers.

Just stay away from PCWorlds 0844 56 1 00 00. They are not UK based or have any formal customer service, technical or company policy training. They have admitted that they have a set script to read for different occassions but lack the understanding to know which script to read.

Retail giants do need to do something and not rely on the fact that they are multinational and can survive the small 1% of complaints.

1% is too much. Especially when they deal with millions of customers, thousands of customers a year not receiving good services from these companies need to change

[spikeachu]

Originally Posted by Complaints.retail

Just stay away from PCWorlds 0844 56 1 00 00. They are not UK based or have any formal customer service, technical or company policy training. They have admitted that they have a set script to read for different occassions but lack the understanding to know which script to read.

I can guarantee that you are 100% misinformed in this statement. There are no set scripts, no set resolutions and last time I checked, Sheffield was in the UK.

I can't vouch for information about Tesco and other companies, but if you're worried about libel on a website you are creating, you should make sure that your informants are reliable.

[gyzmo]

Complaints.retail - have you been on this forum before? Maybe under a different name? Maybe...

RPOV or FRED two thousand and something or anything akin to that?

The reason why court action is threatened is because that is the stage for settling such disputes when the retailer wll not adhere to the contract.

[labrat]

personal opinion from someone who used to work at the pcworld technical call center in nottingham.

note used to.

when i started there it was a decently staffed call center, you had to have computer knowledge before starting and had to pass an over the phone test before you were even considered for interview, the shifts wernt that great but were well laid out with a 4 on 2 off pattern, you had 5 weeks of training including in depth off each majour retailers systems and common problems, then sometime about a year or 2 ago, (i forgot how long and since ive left dont care) they outsorced it to capita who brought in alot of unfriendly practices to the workplace

they changed the shifts 3 times in under a year once without the 4 weeks notice that our contact said we should receave.
they had no appeal process for people who could not travel to work at these times and caused alot of trained staff to leave.

they brought in a rule that if you were off ill 3 times in a year even just for one day illnesses you had a discaplinery meeting, again alot left

they dropped the bonus from a possible £280 cash every 3 months based on cmr service to around £30 a month in vouchers for keeping call lengths under 10 mins, with a target of around 6 mins.

they dropped the technical test to join, and dropped the training from 5 weeks to 3.

the tests to move up ranks in the call center were nerfed with no longer needing to get A+ and microsoft certified to move up to the top 2 ranks (the ones where your allowed to take premium rate calls), (the new questions include "name the latest version of windows") they dropped the top rank.

they got rid of second level support so now if you dont know your not likely to find out

the bad news is none of the trained people have really stayed the good news is that most of them went to the laptop workshop that was near by so they have doubled there output, ive got alot of friends who went there. (dont ask what the bonus is there its shocking).

so mostly you can blame capita main reason i left is being threatend with disciplinary action over offering to call a customer back to resolve the issue, apparently it would take too much time off the phones and stop me answering other calls, i on the other hand had promised that customer a call so call him i did, and for that they threatend filenotes and other disciplinary action

edit: forgot to mention there is a small script now cant remember where it was tho, doent tell them what to say just says try this test if this doesnt work got a if it does work goto b

[stardust_john]

This thread didn't make sence to me I'm afraid.

[Bookworm]

Join the club.

[gyzmo]

what the f.....

[ForestChav]

Originally Posted by labrat

personal opinion from someone who used to work at the pcworld technical call center in nottingham.

note used to.

when i started there it was a decently staffed call center, you had to have computer knowledge before starting and had to pass an over the phone test before you were even considered for interview, the shifts wernt that great but were well laid out with a 4 on 2 off pattern, you had 5 weeks of training including in depth off each majour retailers systems and common problems, then sometime about a year or 2 ago, (i forgot how long and since ive left dont care) they outsorced it to capita who brought in alot of unfriendly practices to the workplace

they changed the shifts 3 times in under a year once without the 4 weeks notice that our contact said we should receave.
they had no appeal process for people who could not travel to work at these times and caused alot of trained staff to leave.

they brought in a rule that if you were off ill 3 times in a year even just for one day illnesses you had a discaplinery meeting, again alot left

they dropped the bonus from a possible £280 cash every 3 months based on cmr service to around £30 a month in vouchers for keeping call lengths under 10 mins, with a target of around 6 mins.

they dropped the technical test to join, and dropped the training from 5 weeks to 3.

the tests to move up ranks in the call center were nerfed with no longer needing to get A+ and microsoft certified to move up to the top 2 ranks (the ones where your allowed to take premium rate calls), (the new questions include "name the latest version of windows") they dropped the top rank.

they got rid of second level support so now if you dont know your not likely to find out

the bad news is none of the trained people have really stayed the good news is that most of them went to the laptop workshop that was near by so they have doubled there output, ive got alot of friends who went there. (dont ask what the bonus is there its shocking).

so mostly you can blame capita main reason i left is being threatend with disciplinary action over offering to call a customer back to resolve the issue, apparently it would take too much time off the phones and stop me answering other calls, i on the other hand had promised that customer a call so call him i did, and for that they threatend filenotes and other disciplinary action

edit: forgot to mention there is a small script now cant remember where it was tho, doent tell them what to say just says try this test if this doesnt work got a if it does work goto b

A lot of this is true... I left before it got really bad, so it seems.