Wednesday 24 June 2009

Customer experience of the carphone warehouse

We'll it's been a bit of a roller coaster of emotions ranging from delight (a wow to use Chris Daffy's terminology) to total frustration (an ouch). Here's my story so far. My mobile is essential to me for work and non work activities, particularly work as I'm self employed. Imagine my horror on the 19 May when it stopped working.

Stressed I took it to Carphone Warehouse, one of their USPs is that they repair mobiles even if they are not purchased from them. Imagine my delight when the attentive customer adviser informed me that it was within guarantee and could be repaired without charge, that's a wow, I hadn't anticipated that. He gave me the shop's direct telephone number rather than me have to use an 0870 number ( 9p per minute but don't get me started on that one !). I rang a few days later and was told It was ready, this was still looking like a wow. These interactions are what Jan Carlson calls "moments of truth" (those times when your organisations reputation is on the line).

Here comes the ouch. It wasn't fixed it had exactly the same fault as before. Craig the assistant was extremely apologetic and said he'd escalate this for me but that it would have to be sent away and that it could be as long as 10 days. A wasted trip not to mention an ouch of gigantic proportions.

I got a text over the weekend 20/21 June to say it was ready & went to collect it with high hopes. They'd fitted some new board in it but .....You've guessed it, it still had the same fault. Craig was extremely apologetic and escalated it again. He informed me that this was happening a lot at the moment, not much comfort. Surely there is a feedback mechanism within the organisation for making the people that need to know this ? Anyway, he suggested I complained and that it was I did today 24 June to an 0870 number with an IVR system which was difficult to navigate around and took me two attempts and cost me £1.50 in total.

In case you're wondering why I haven't gone for their jugular, i've been fortunate enough to be able to use an old mobile belonging to my wife.

Will I recommend them to a friend. It really does all depend on whether they are able to perform a recovery here of epic proportions. I still haven't pushed the fact that i've had two wasted trips, petrol, time and telephone call costs surely i'll be entiltled to something ?

Next steps, i've got to phone that 087o number next Tuesday. Watch this space.