Customer Complaint II: Spices African Restaurant, Manchester, your spice is shit

Silly me

Smarting from my encounter with Currys PC World, as a glutton for more punishment I went online shopping again for food through Hungry House.

I typed in my postcode and I clicked on African cuisine and a list of 5 restaurants showed up, most of which serve Nigerian fare but only one of them was online, it was Spices African Restaurant and so I placed an order of various meals totalling £51 including delivery and I received a confirmation that my order was acknowledged and pending.

My order and confirmation

 

A few minutes later at 19:18, I received an email confirmation that my order would arrive anytime between 19:40 and 20:25, at which point, I began to salivate with Pavlovian expectation.

My hunger angered

At 20:18, an hour after my order was placed, I received a phone call; I almost jumped out of my seat to get my order from the door when the caller asked who he was calling. Quite strange since he would have had the order and that was where he got my phone number from.

I gave him my name as he asked if I have put an order to his restaurant through Hungry House, I replied in the affirmative and at that point he told me my order was to be cancelled because there was no one to deliver it. I was stunned.

I remonstrated that having confirmed my order, it meant they had what I ordered and were able to deliver it, but he was having none of it as he told me to call Hungry House to cancel my order and seek a refund.

Pissing me off

At which point I asked if that was how he did business, but he was nonchalant. Angered and frustrated, I offered that Spices African Restaurant would not get a good review for this, to which he replied something to the effect that I could go and do my worst.

I called Hungry House to complain since they are acting as the portal and escrow service to Spices African Restaurant and they were none too pleased. I was given a £5 voucher towards y next Hungry House order and my money would be refunded within the next 3 working days – a rotten inconvenience, but I am not finished with Spices African Restaurant yet.

Closed for business

For the moment their account has been suspended on Hungry House like the other African Restaurants that might have been involved in sharp business practices as Spices African Restaurant, except for Tae’s Tavern which is currently undergoing refurbishment.

Why are they all offline? Spices African Restaurant was put offline after my complaint

Suffice it to say that Spices African Restaurant has probably gotten away with such rotten service without consequence or repercussion because no one pursues the matter beyond the exchanges on the phone, but I am having none of it.

Bad business mien

It saddens me that many ethnic businesses take a lax attitude to customer service and handle the importance of first impressions with levity, almost oblivious and unconcerned of the damage it can cause the reputation of their business and the loss of custom.

As the business begins to fail, they attribute their difficulties to external factors when the problem is principally their attitude to cultivating respectful and considerate customer relationships. This is the stuff vendettas are made of, especially one that leaves a hungry man too angry to think of food until the blog is completed.

Spices African Restaurant, you crossed the wrong man and you have not begun to pay dearly for this. Your spices are rotten, your Africanness is suspect and your service as a restaurant is a disgrace.

Customer Complaint I: Not at Currys PC World, if I could help it

Bad, bad service

In many cases when businesses run into difficulty, a good investigation of the root cause might well lead to errors of omission or commission by the owners of the business or just bad customer service.

My evening has been quite eventful starting with an order that I placed with Currys PC World Ancoats Manchester. It was received and acknowledged with the opportunity to pick up my goods in an hour.

Almost 40 minutes after I placed my order, I got a phone call that my reserved order was on display in the showroom and that was the only one in stock and I could collect it for the same price as new.

That is just not on

There was no way I was going to let Currys PC World pass off unboxed goods as pristine, except where it was unboxed in my presence for me to check the contents before the leaving the store.

At worst, an offer could have been made to knock-down the price because the product was no more new, but none of that was forthcoming and their weak apologies for the situation left me feeling like they were in this to pull a fast one on me.

With staff like this

Where they could have had the initiative to have one delivered from a nearby store for me to pick up the next day, they were unpersuadable that it got to a point after knowing that I had shopped at Currys PC World for years and in fact, the high-specification laptop I am blogging from was acquired from the same shop last year, they were unhelpful.

Maybe hostile is not the word, but unfriendly, uncooperative and lacking in customer service decorum sums it up. With staff like this, you might well close shop.

I would rather take my money elsewhere and wait eons for my order than besmirch my dignity with a visit to Currys PC World again. It is little things like this, dishonest, underhand and reprehensible that could destroy a reputation built over decades, and just because staff fail to appreciate the responsibility they hold in an organisation.

Shopping down the wire

I flew British Midland

I think it was April 1995 when I went online through Compuserve and bought an air ticket from British Midland to Amsterdam from London on the aptly named http://iflyBritishMidland.com website.

Since then I have bought books, goods, and electronics online without much worry, though a good friend did inform me over the weekend that he was a victim of credit card fraud but thankfully his bank was alert enough to see the irregularities and contact him to repudiate transactions made in his name by some other unauthorised person.

Assumptions clouding alertness

However, recently, I have been wondering if Internet Shopping is anymore the fun it used to be where you had choices, options and the flexibility of not having to explain yourself too many times to get something done.

I noticed that when I book air tickets on the KLM site, if it was towards the end of the month there was the possibility that the return date would be presented as month hence even though one just wanted a couple of days.

For instance, I wanted to travel on the 26th and return on the 29th, it was when I was checking in online that I found that the 29th return date was a month hence rather than the same month.

This has happened to me to before and I have to pay for another full fare ticket to correct the mistake, this time my ticket was flexible, I could change it if I wanted.

Fewer choices on the Internet

In fact, I would think if I had bought the ticket at a counter, it would be nigh on impossible to end up with the wrong return date, the teller would probably have asked if I really wanted to spend 34 days away instead of 3 – Methinks this kind of logic is necessary on the website.

The ticket was flexible which meant I could change it, but using the Internet facility for ticket alteration offered to charge me the full whack for the ticket, however, when I made a phone call to customer services, the change was effected without additional charge – what relief.

Ich bin leider

Then, using the flexibility of being able to book journeys between countries which the German Railways bahn.de site offers as opposed to the rigidity of other country railway sites, I booked a ticket to Geneva.

The site could not offer me a price but I got an acknowledgement of my request, usually, when an air ticket is booked, you get a confirmation of the request, a confirmation of the order and the cost of the transaction in minutes, you get that with hotels too.

German efficiency went up the creek for that, for days, I heard or saw nothing for 8 days, I had to call customer services, meanwhile earlier in the day I had emailed them to determine if my tickets would be sent.

I was informed they were sent that very day, but it took the best part of 4 working days for the tickets to traverse the humongous cavern between Germany and the Netherlands.

I was none the wiser about the cost of the ticket or whether it had really been sorted for the intervening period.

Schrecklicher Kundendienst

A reply arrived which simply said if I did not get the tickets before the day of travel, I should buy the tickets on the day of travel and then ask for a reimbursement.

These people still deliver 21 days to deliver my tickets and had already given up on giving me any service – I was gobsmacked – I was travelling around Easter, I might not get a seat and the tickets might cost twice over for a 12 hour journey – at which point I really regretted not going to a ticket counter, queuing up for maybe an hour and arranging my travel over 30 minutes for a booking fee.

I gave up on trying to remonstrate and waited – eventually the tickets arrived like I said, but there was much lost in customer service that could only be termed deplorable and beyond the pale.

Press the flesh

I doubt if I would be quick to book certain things on the Internet soon again, the need for human interaction with the warts and foibles might just be what one needs.

Surely, do your research and help the teller along with the information required for your transaction but keep your credit card in your pocket when sat behind that inanimate screen and take a walk down to the shop, the store or the ticket counter and make social conversation.

Obviously, when I said what is 2 inches between friends to the assistant the other day when trying to buy a television and talking about size, you should have seen his face go bright red, I would suppose he was adding colour to the conversation – the things that go on in people’s minds, unspeakable.

You cannot call computers stupid, but it is strange what you can call human beings when you have the right temperament.

Presence without essence - Internet

Snail mail, no call

I just received mail in the post from a renowned retail and catalogue services concern in the Netherlands with an Internet presence [1]. The contents suggested that I call to arrange when I would be available to receive my order.

Such communication should not be strange; it does have an element of customer service which until quite recently was not to be expected in the Netherlands.

It can only mean that organisations are implicitly working on some other aspect of their business model and fabric that allows for their employees in the customer-facing departments to feel a little more involved as representatives of their organisation and a very interesting touch of shared responsibilities.

However, this mail came about when I was shopping around for some exercise equipment, this time, an exercise bicycle having already acquired the Total Gym XL and the Ab Burner which is usually advertised as the Ab King Pro.

The history of my desires for a perfect body over the laid-back approach of easy-living without the complications and vain-glorious hedonism is not too well documented, but work is apace at getting fitter and looking better. Suffice it to say, the gym on the second floor of my apartment block has been visited thrice, however, not in any attempt to break any sweat, even though aerobics presents an interesting spectacle.

Left in the pre-history of e-Commerce

The issue on view here is the number of companies that have an Internet presence but have not fully inculcated the essence of being on the Internet, having a web present and offering opportunities to transact business with them.

The first observation was months ago when having observed what the Ab King Pro does for working on the abdominal muscles on one of those ubiquitous and at times utterly loathsome shopping channels [2], I went to their web site and placed an order.

Having been an Internet user since 1994, I have been rather confident of Internet transactions since 1996 when I could book flights on the British Midland site then called http://www.iflybristishmidland.com - it was awfully nice to be able to eliminate completely the middleman and enjoy the convenience of seeing all the options and making your own choices to your particular convenience. The foray into e-commerce in its infancy encouraged my subsequent activities of conveniently preferring the Internet ordering system to the calling the customer service or sales desk.

I had inadvertently mistyped my credit card details, which eventually turned out to be convenient, because having placed the order, it offered no record of the transaction on screen or by email, even though that transaction had successfully registered an email message to their sales department. Basically, on the tip-off of a friend the gym kit was obtained for about a quarter of the price at a retail outlet [3] having done the requisite research on the Internet.

Premium call deterrent

In fact, the charges for calling the premium rate number are outrageous; where the possibility of keeping you connected for over 30 minutes is likely, with 20 of those minutes being on a waiting queue because all sales people are engaged. When you finally get connected to the "friendly" sales person, just hope that you can both agree on a language for your dialogue and that what you are ordering is what is being offered. Once before after waiting over two and a half hours, I was put back in the queue because he spoke Dutch, I spoke English - How is that for communication breakdown?

Unreasonable form options

Anyway, I made this order on the company's web site, only to find out that there was no means of payment, rather someone was going to call me to arrange delivery. There was a restriction of only allowing fixed line phone numbers rather than mobile numbers which offer a sense of contactable ubiquity. Eventually, a letter arrived rather than the call a good seven working days after.

What is most irksome about this is I now take the cost of the phone call they were supposed to make and probably for all their Internet presence; I would have to pay at the doorstep when the goods are delivered. In arranging a window for delivery which at times is based of a 4-hour morning or afternoon, I am prepared to be surprised if they offer evening deliveries at no additional cost.

Aspiring but despairing

The most amusing of these Internet presences without essence firms was a personal computer firm; it took the best part of 2 weeks to adequately shop around for a laptop. What was quite striking about it was the fact that it was nigh on impossible to walk out of over 8 PC shops with a ready-built computer, everything required a waiting period of days in some instances.

I then decided on the convenience of Internet-shopping for a laptop and did get one of the best specifications I could find. As I placed the order I suddenly realised the order had been confirmed without a means of payment. Then I called the firm only to be told I could pay at the door. That was plainly and utterly inconvenient for the risks and circumstances.

With much persuasion we agreed on making a bank transfer, and then the parcel arrived through the regular parcel delivery service. Having gotten the impression that a company courier would deliver the laptop and collect the payment at the doorstep, they used the regular post.

Ideas should fit in your strategy

In conclusion, it is evident that those who have jumped on the e-commerce bandwagon, did so without securing a think-through of what they intend to achieve by having a web presence. The concept of basic web presence is now Internet pre-history, the Ice Age of thawing of innovation just before the dawn of the DotComs.

If a company is interested in engaging customers in an interactive choice-driven environment that allows them to make quality decisions on products of interest, then they should complete the process by offering the full experience of convincingly ordering, knowingly paying and confidently expecting service of those orders or requests.

Just being a supermarket style trolley which never gets to the check-out till is no fun to either the buyer or the seller. The start-up of an e-commerce business could incur large initial costs, but once the audience and marketplace is established, it is still no operation for the faint hearted.

References 

[1] Wehkamp http://www.wehkamp.nl/homepage/p_homepage.asp?Page=HOM [2] Telsell http://www.telsell.com/ [3] Perry Sport http://www.perrysport.nl/ [4] Computerland http://computerland.com