My Blackberry has died; it won’t turn on at all. A sad thing, but It happens, phones are sophisticated pieces of kit these days, ok you would think given that its less than 4 months old, simply take it back to the Carphone Warehouse and get it replaced.
You would be very wrong.
Spoke to them first and was told that it would have to go in for repair, a bit of a pain, but ok, would I be able to get a temporary replacement Blackberry, again that would be no.
Alright, so how long will I be without my Blackberry, lass says its supposed to be 28 days but will probably be nearer to 9 weeks at least, she says once it took 23 weeks for one to come back!!!
So now I am a bit wound up, so I try and contact the head office and I am cut off 12 times as soon as I get though to someone!!!
So I have to email the head of Carphone Warehouse, Charles Dunstone, their Customer Service Director Nigel Pearson and thier Head of Customer Service, Anita McErlean, after which I got a call from a nice chap in the CEOs office who had originally said it would be replaced after being inspected in the Express Repairs Centre at the Northumberland Street store in Newcastle upon Tyne, to make sure I have not damaged it by throwing it at a brick wall for example, and that he would refund my Blackberry charges for 1 month as a gesture of goodwill, and if no Blackberry Bolds are in stock I will be supplied with a loan phone.
Brilliant!
Well no actually that’s not the case, when I arrived at the store i was told it needed to be sent off to RIM and would take an unknown amount of time to be repaired, I am quite angry by now and my temper is beginning to boil over, but when the guy behind the counter says,
“you have dropped this down the toilet or something as these things are normally water damage, just get mugged or something on the way home, report it to the police and claim on your insurance.”
Now I am really angry as the guy has advised me to commit Insurance fraud, so I will admit I lost my rag and raised my voice and asked to see his manager, who come out starts ranting on about me being an abusive customer and that he was going to call the police to get me removed from the store, very customer friendly. He calms down but refuses to agree with what the chap form his head office had already agreed with me, and insists that it must go off for repair and no loan phone will be provided.
So I end up having to ring the nice chap from the CEOs office up to sort this out, he speaks to the Manager who becomes very sheepish and a resolution, one I am not happy with I must add, is reached.
So what’s going to happen, well, the phone has gone off for repair, if the repair is not successful I have been told that I will be given a replacement, if the repair runs over 28 days, that is, if its not back in my hand by the 7th September, then I will be issued a replacement. In the meantime Carphone Warehouse will refund me £10 a month for my Blackberry charges until I have a working one in my hand, and for everyday I do not have a phone they will give me a pro-rata refund for the rest of my bill, because as it turns out, they don’t have any loan phones, in fact the manager told a barefaced lie about that one.
If at any time Carphone Warehouse break this agreement, I have informed them that I will file a claim with the County Court against the CEO, Director of Customer Services, Head of Customer Service, the store manager and Carphone Warehouse itself, an extreme step, but from I have been told by others who have had experience with Carphone Warehouse, seems to be the only way to make sure its all sorted.
But thus far I have to say, Carphone Warehouse really need to get to grips with their customer service, its dreadful, they are quick to blame and tell an awful lot of lies and try to blame anybody else for a problem.
Now honestly, its not like I have decided that I don’t like my phone and want to change for the latest model, I just want it replaced with the same phone, except working, I love the Blackberry Bold, its a brilliant device.
When I worked in Banking, I went on a customer service training course, and I was taught something I think is very apt, a customer who has good service will often never say anything, but someone who has bad customer service will tell 10. Back then social media and blogging was still in its infancy, today, well we won’t just tell 10, we tell the world.
So maybe some one from the Carphone Warehouse will read this and realise that they need to clean house when it comes to customer service.
I will keep you all updated, and you never know, maybe I will be one of the lucky few that actually get something sorted out.
Michael
