Universal post office experiences

On the recent cruise I tried to send postcards home at every stop (see the picture above for me posting a postcard in Corfu). I had a couple of visits to post offices that made me aware of the universality of some experiences - particularly unhelpful customer service!

In Dubrovnik I went into a post office to buy stamps and bought them with no trouble at all. It was about 1.58pm. After purchasing the stamps I saw the post office had some unusual and interesting looking souvenirs opposite the counter. 

As I looked at the souvenirs one of the clock-watching staff suddenly announced "sorry we are closed" and tapped her watch to tell me it was 2pm. They literally turned the latch to lock the door after I exited. 

In Kotor, Montenegro, I had another universal post office experienece. There was a queue and only one person serving. There was another staff member sat at the desk, with a little notice saying 'closed' (I presume) while she did something important, counting what looked like receipts. 

The queue stretched to the door as the person at the front of the queue was made to fill out various forms that would be attached to their parcel. The guy behind me huffed and tapped his foot. My brother appeared at the door peering over the shoulder of the last queuer wondering what the hell had happened to me. Meanwhile, the second cashier carried on with her important task, oblivious.

I was bemused and amused. Why are so many post offices like this, wherever you go in the world?  It reminded me of the post office in Taff's Well that used to close for lunch, despite that being the most convenient time for people working nearby to use their services. I asked the postmistress why they did that and she brusquely told me "we need to eat lunch too!" Which is fair, but, you know, customers... 

I have to say here that our local post office in Holmesdale Street is the exception. The counter is open every day of the week. The staff are helpful and friendly. They move the queue through quickly. It's a great little shop. Sometimes, you have to travel the world to be reminded of what a gem you have at home. 

Post-script

Even if you have a good post office experience, your item is still at the mercy of the delivery agency. One of my postcards didn't make it back unscathed.

I'm not sure if this damage was done to the postcard on the Dubrovnik end or back here in the UK. I wouldn't put it past Royal Mail. And, naturally, the rip damaged the stamp!

My stamp-collecting Dad would have ranted about this for hours. Honestly, I just laughed.

Post-post-script

Now that all five postcards I was able to send have arrived, I can tell you the Montenegro post office redeemed itself, with the post card arriving much sooner than the two cards I posted in the Greek islands. The card from Kefalonia was the last to arrive and literally landed on the mat this morning.

And another company who sucketh mightily: Tesco

I went to Tesco to buy a little Dell netbook and couldn't... because the staff couldn't find the key to open the electricals cupboard. After 45 minutes I left sans netbook and in a bit of a funk with Tesco.

They do have a decent contact system though. I got given a card with all their contact details on. Although the fact they have a card shows that obviosuly a few things go wrong.

This is an excerpt from the email I sent them to complain:

I cannot fault the attitudes of the young woman working on the electricals counter who dealt with me, or Laura on customer service, or James the store manager (who had unfortunately walked into all this first thing on his shift). They were courteous and I could sense their frustration on my behalf.

However, it did take some time and several phone calls from the assistant on the electricals desk before any action seemed to be taken. The assistant was on her own so could not go and find the key herself and there seemed a distinct lack of urgency or response to her pleas for help. It seemed from her demeanour that the people she was phoning were unhelpful and 'not bothered'.

I was left with the impression that this member of staff was left unsupported, which compounded my frustration. Having worked in customer service myself, I know how demoralising it is to disappoint customers because of reasons beyond your control.

There were several things that could have been done better in this instance.

A colleague could have taken it upon themselves to hunt down the missing key or proactively check the places it was supposed to be rather than have to be directed by multiple phone calls from the sales assistant.

Obviously a better system for key handover would have helped. The key had apparently been signed back in at some remote location (downstairs perhaps), but was now missing. Quite how that happened (and the stock control issues that it raises) seemed quite unprofessional for such a well-known company.

Realising that a customer had been waiting fro 45 minutes, a manager could have shown some initiative to offer an apology and / or seek an alternative solution.

Like I said, the staff I spoke to were very sympathetic and expressed their frustration on my behalf. I did make these comments to the newly-arrived shift manager in a level and fair way, but also related my annoyance at the situation. Again a chance to be proactive was missed because nobody on the customer service desk offered to take my name and contact details to follow up my experience and inform me whether the lap top was actually available or not.

So, all in all, I am left with a wasted trip to an out of town supermarket, and a sense that Tesco may be a very successful company, but on this occasion it failed miserably at providing me with the item I wanted. Very little help, really.

And I did get an email back. But it was a missed opportunity...

Thank you for your email.

I am very concerned to learn of the problems you have experienced when trying to purchase a laptop from our Culverhouse Cross Extra store. Please accept my apologies for any frustration this matter has caused you

We aim to provide the very best service and it is disappointing when a customer is unhappy with any aspect of our operations.

I have passed your comments to our Store Manager, Huw Cowell, who will address the matter with the staff members concerned. This will ensure that this does not happen again.

I would like to thank you for bringing this matter to our attention and I am confident that you will not experience any further problems on your next visit to your local store.

Making sure it doesn't happen again isn't exactly what I was looking for. I'd be very surprised if it happened again because they apparently had 50 grands worth of electricals in that room and didn't know where the key was (off being copied perhaps?). I imagine they'll keep a close eye on the key. Great.

But it doesn't give me back my valuable time and it doesn't make me feel any better about my situation or about the numpty twazmuppets at Tesco.

I'm not exactly sure what Tesco could offer me as recompense, but the customer service lackey's confidence isn't it.

Check the entire box set next time

How annoying is this? We have reached season five in our entire-run box set of the West Wing and the first disc is so badly scratched that it wouldn't play the whole first episode.

It's a brand new DVD. Some packer somewhere must have scraped the disc in.

And frustratingly, Play.com only guarantee things for 28 days. How are you supposed to watch every West Wing episode in 28 days to check for scratches. I have hunted on their website and they have no contact email that I could see - I think because it's been more than 28 days since I bought it. So now I have to phone them.

Things like this frustrate me. I don't know why companies bury their contact details. I've gone from mildly irritated with the disc to very irritated with Play.

The phone call won't be a happy one.

Chiquito's Cardiff Bay

I'm umming and ahhing over whether to write a complaint letter, but while I consider it, here are a couple of comments about our dining experience Friday night.

Firstly, it took us an hour and a half to be served our main course. When I commented on this to the waitress she said it was because they were "busy" and "many people have turned up to eat". Hello? It's a restaurant. It's a Friday night. What were they expecting? I mean surely it's not a huge step of logical thought to assume people might turn up at a restaurant expecting to eat?

Plus when we got there the place was virtually deserted. Fortunately we'd had our starters before the place filled up. But the only reason the place was so full was because after our starters had come out, no one had been served with any food. Here's a tip for anyone from Chiquito's reading this - this is how restaurants work: you serve people food, they eat, pay for it and leave. If you don't serve any food, people tend to stay.

Around us were table after table of very hungry looking potential diners. And we waited, and we waited, and we waited. Some people left having just had drinks, to be replaced by more waiting hungry customers. It got so bad I began to wonder if Bob Geldof was about to release a charity single on our behalf.

Eventually, as we crossed into a new geological epoch, our food came. Given the huge wait, my chili and rice had obviously been sitting under a hot plate for too long. The rice had burned underneath into an inedible clump. The chili was tasty but had that lukewarm temperature of chili that's sat around for a while. My friend Bryan's "Chilli fries" were just oven chips with ordinary table pepper sprinkled on them.

I asked to see the duty manager, having warned my table that there might well be a scene. The waitress went off to find said manager, and returned to say she was in the kitchen helping with getting all the orders out and she was very busy. I found that staggering in terms of customer service. You've got an annoyed customer who asks to see the manager, and the manager is "too busy" to see them. How to not win repeat business in one short lesson!

It's not as if Chiquito's has no competition. New restaurants are springing up every other day in Cardiff Bay. It's not cheap either. You'd have thought that in the current climate, as people's going out funds are reduced, restaurant managers would be switched on to the need to keep customers happy and hopefully loyal.

Like I said, I think I'll be writing a letter to the Head Office.