February 21, 2010
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UK Service Sucks But It Could Be Worse
It has been four months since I’d moved into my new home which had exposed the massive deterioration in the service sector in the UK. There was a time, which seems like a distance memory now, where service was top notch. First class mail would be delivered the following day or the day after at the latest. Now it could be a week. One letter was delivered three weeks late! An appointment for a telecom engineer can be arranged within the week. Now you have to wait three to four weeks for the engineer to pay a visit.Thankfully, nearly all of the problems have been resolved with the mattress arriving yesterday albeit at 7.30AM! The first mattress delivered in November was the wrong one and was returned. It took two months before a refund was credited. A new mattress was ordered at the end of December and somehow my order “got lost in the system.”
I’m not even going to detail all the mishaps and problems as it will probably irk me and my blood pressure needs to stay stable. Suffice to say, all that remained was the delivery of my microwave which should have arrived yesterday but didn’t. This was the second time a redelivery for the microwave was arranged and the parcel failed to appear. The courier in question is DHL. It stands for Damaged, Hidden or Lost.
Several hundred pages were ripped out in-between
What was your worst service-related situation?
Drop A Comment Please (because I’m such a comment whore)
I had the pleasure of meeting Chris in person when I was in Thailand. Chris was probably one of the last subscribers to regularly drop comments on my blog before my hiatus. In his post where he’d disclosed some information about himself and the benefits of blogging on xanga, Chris mentioned only about 10-20% of his subscribers ever dropped a comment and said “Hello”. The remainder could be blogging stalkers! I do agree that commenting on someone’s blog will open up a communication channel and a new friendship could blossom. If Chris and I didn’t comment on each other’s blog then it is doubtful we would have met during my time in Bangkok.
Back in the day (when I’d lived in Amsterdam) where I’d blogged regularly, my subscriber base was over 400 and my estimate is that around 50 subscribers ever commented on my blog. And I have met quite a lot of that 50 during my travels, some of whom have become good friends to this day. There are still a couple I maintain contact with but never had the opportunity to meet in person yet. As more people I subscribe to lost interest in blogging and the amount of comments diminished, I guess I began to lose interest too. Plus I had moved back to London and discovered free time for blogging was rapidly becoming a luxury. Xanga losing all my photos pre-2005 and not responding to my messages played a significant part. I’m still pissed off about that. Since the layout change I have no idea how many subscribers but it still looks like a lot.
For some reason I have rediscovered my motivation for blogging but whether that is sustainable remains to be seen. So for new readers – and old – please drop a comment and say “Hello”. Let’s make this community a welcoming confluence of social interaction.
For New ReadersSomething about my blogging style:
I blog about anything and everything… from the mundane to the controversial. Some might find my style can be too abrasive and blunt for their taste. I also poke fun at anything and anyone irrespective of nationality, gender, sexual preference and eating habits. If you think you might take it personally then please do not subscribe or read my blog.
Hopeful Kiwi Immigrant
A New Zealander is hoping to emigrate to Australia and arrives at Brisbane airport on a beautiful sunny morning full of optimism for the future.
“What is your business in Australia?” politely asks the customs officer.
“I want to emigrate to Australia.”
“Do you have a criminal record?”
Stunned, the crestfallen Kiwi replies, “Geez bro, I didn’t think you still needed one!”
Europe According To…
Comments (22)
I have to agree that DHL sucks. Even in the U.S. their customer service is terrible and they only seem to guarantee the package will “arrive” but not quite when. They dropped their “domestic” business (they were losing too much money) to focus on international but our experiences in deliveries to Latin America have been pretty mediocre at best. At least it seems that their U.S. to Europe service is more reliable.
blog away!
Gosh… that is absolutely atrocious service. I do remember your earlier blogs and I was one of those anonymous subscribers. Your travel pictures drew me in. I remember being a bit intimidated at first commenting on your site because you got so many comments. But you were very gracious and welcoming. I hope you’ll continue to blog. I know it can be a bit of a chore to keep one’s blog updated all the time.
hi. do keep blogging. i like hearing from your perspective, your sense of humor and those GORgeous pictures (you have a great photographic perspective too)! i’m jealous that you get to travel so much and admire that you prioritize things to make that happen. i mostly use xanga to vent and talk to myself, and i’m friends locked. it weirds me out if people from my real life finds me and reads my posts – since i don’t complete freedom to say anything without worrying about pissing them off. long ago, i used to work for a consulting firm based in London (Victoria). that’s wonderful that you live there. if you ever pass through North Carolina or Pittsburgh, PA… you have a friend. – carolyn
welcome back!
been a while since you blogged again… me too… I came back to xanga recently… have been really sucked into FB and twitter since those two sites started…nice to see some old xangans revived!
yay!
So I ordered Ugg boots about… a month ago. According to the Tracking thingy they provided me with, the boots arrived at the DHL in Amsterdam at 2nd Feb. It took them from the 25th Jan, to the 2nd Feb to get from the other side of the world to Amsterdam, but from Amsterdam of my house…? As of yet, still no sign of my boots… =__= I’m about to go ask my money back
It’s good that you are blogging again. Are you traveling as much as before?
welcome back =D. xanga’s a great place…come to think of it, i’d probably consider it the first real “social networking” site I belonged to. For me, it predated facebook by several years, and the community was definitely better than myspace. Even after all these years, still feels like home base. I have been playing around with wordpress.com for awhile, and been looking for a way to cross-list posts. We’ll see about that!
haha… another map that made me chuckled. i mean… bjork??!! lol…
Very funny comment about several hundred pages being ripped out in between. At the moment I can’t recall a worst service experience but can recall a best service experience. Flying on first class in Singapore Airlines from Tokyo to Los Angeles. The purser saw me taking pictures and notes and asked me which airline I worked for, assuming I was a competitor. I explained with a half-truth that my niece was a big airplane enthusiast and would want me to share my experience with her through photos. He asked some questions about my niece, name, age, etc. and while I was sleeping, created a little gift bag that included cards, some of the toys they have on board for young children, and a copy of the menu – inside the front cover of which was a lengthy note about how they looked forward to the day when my niece would come fly on SQ, which was signed by all three pilots and all 20 or so flight attendants. Talk about over the top service.
I still like reading your blogs, but they get delivered straight to my inbox, and I’m usually too lazy to log in and comment, since my blog is at wordpress now.
Guess it wasn’t sustainable. LOL
Glad to see you blog again! DHL lost a shipment I expected from England 5 years, and they have not found it yet. I guess it stands for LOST. Keep on blogging!
How wonderful article! Simple language, concise blog! Another style! I like!
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@Wangium - Unfortunately not much this year due to the weak pound.
DHL are just awful, ive never had a good experience with them, i dont think ill ever use them again when they told me there was no access to my property, 3 times in a row.
Very funny comment
about several hundred pages being ripped out in between. At the moment
I can’t recall a worst service experience but can recall a best service
experience. Flying on first class in Singapore Airlines from Tokyo to
Los Angeles. The purser saw me taking pictures and notes and asked me
which airline I worked for, assuming I was a competitor. I explained
with a half-truth that my niece was a big airplane enthusiast and would
want me to share my experience with her through photos. He asked some
questions about my niece, name, age, etc. and while I was sleeping,
created a little gift bag that included cards, some of the toys they
have on board for young children, and a copy of the menu – inside the
front cover of which was a lengthy note about how they looked forward to
the day when my niece would come fly on SQ, which was signed by all
three pilots and all 20 or so flight attendants. Talk about over the
top service.
<table><tbody><tr><td id=”seolinx-table”><table id=”seolinx-paramtable”><tbody><tr><td> PR: wait…<td> I: wait…<td> L: wait…<td> LD: wait…<td> I: wait…<td>wait…<td> Rank: wait…<td> Traffic: wait…<td> Price: wait…<td> C: wait…<td id=”seolinx-tooltip-close” title=”close”>
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No couriers are perfect, but DHL take the biscuit.
I know DHL always say ‘label came off so parcel was delayed’ so this time i labelled it… 3 times. On different places in different way. Guess what, this time the parcel got lost altogether!
Sometimes, it just isn’t worth DHL’s time or money to make an effort to send your parcel, if anything happens to the parcel for example, damage or barcode removed, they just class it as lost. I also found out that the company in the UK that buys all these packages of them (lost property) receives LOADS of parcels FULLY labelled (except barcodes) which DHL can’t be bothered to re-barcode and send.