The anti whinge thread

[Wulfruna]

Absolutely - rare to find such good customer service..... but why not?

[giraffe]

Yesterday I posted a parcel to my sister for Christmas.

The rather sour faced woman in the post office (who looks like it would kill her to smile or be pleasant, and this is a small rural post office not a big anonymous one) asked me what was in it. New regulations apparently, because I was sending my niece some nail varnishes and manicure things it had to have a huge hazardous materials sticker on it, and my sender's address wasn't good enough, it needed the name as well. She wanted to know exactly how many bottles of nail varnish (and I honestly couldn't remember because it was a couple of weeks since I wrapped it) and she said that if it wasn't all declared exactly right it would be picked up when they scanned it and destroyed. By the time I left I was all of a fluster, I had meant to send it 1st class because it contained some jewellery for my niece's 21st birthday and possibly even pay for insurance, but I forgot, and she didn't ask me what class postage, just put second on it. Driving home I decided that there were probably 5 bottles of varnish and I had declared 4, and she had asked if it was 1-4, so I don't know if she would have refused to accept it if I had said 5. So I was expecting the parcel to be intercepted, destroyed and the 21st present lost.

I have just had an email from my sister, 25 hours after I posted it second class to say it has arrived. So three cheers for Royal Mail.

[gill216]

Jobsworth! I come across them frequently in post offices. In October, they wanted me to pay somewhere in the region of £2 each extra postage for our 2 overseas subscribers. No way were they going into the box if I didn't. Despite the weight being correct and the envelopes going through their little plastic thingy and clearly marked printed paper. I refused and said I'd take them away and remove some bits from them.

Ha ha, I lied.

I sent my mate back in to buy 2 sets of stamps to the value of 2p extra each and told her to say that she needed to enclose stamps to that value for some things she was sending away for if she was asked. She wasn't. I stuck them on the envelopes and put them in the outside post box myself. They both arrived because I checked.

However, good service today. I received a text and an email at 1.30 to say that something I'd ordered had been received at the sorting office and they would attempt to deliver it today. I got it at 2.10. Can't ask for much more than that can you?

And also great service from our caravan site. They are emailing and posting on facebook re the weather conditions and damages that have already happened. This is their time off !!!. So far only strong winds and the usual damage to tv aerials and plastic storage boxes etc. Further updates to be made after the tidal surge which is expected at 6pm. Again, can't ask for more can I?

[giraffe]

I hope it's ok, Gill. My niece in Hull says it's very very very windy!

[gill216]

Latest update from our site is that the waves were over topping the street lights never mind the sea defences and while they lost some land it could have been worse. No significant damage to our tin tents and wooden huts. (ie none went into the sea!).

[LAT]

Well that sounds like reasonably good news. Hope everything is intact when you get back there.

[Bunnylump]

Wow. I went mad today, and for the first time ever, got a lady in to clean my cooker, which was verging on being a health hazard. She is self employed and goes by the name of "Oven Wizard." She arrived spot on time, had mysterious tanks of (apparently) chemical-free stuff which were connected to her van, which she boiled all the shelves and glass doors from both ovens. She was there for a full 2 and a half hours, on her hands and knees, scrubbing - which is especially surprising because she told me she was 60!! I must say the results were amazing, - D commented that h hadn't realised that the shelves were silver! Yes, it did cost me £45, but it was worth every penny for it not to be ME on my hands and knees, scrubbing for 2 1/2 hours!!

Anyway, if anyone near me needs her number let me know, I'd definitely recommend!

[gill216]

Praise for our local Aldi. There was a voucher in one of the daily rags for spend £75 and get £15 off. They ordered extra newspapers and had them on sale at the till until such time as they ran out of them. As opposed to sending them back next dayas they should have done. Buy as many as you liked until they had none left. AND telling you about them. I've stocked up the freezer, stocked up the booze cabinet and stocked up on cleaning products and general things and saved myself £45 on 3 different vouchers. Well done to our local store.

[giraffe]

We have ordered one piece of kitchen worktop from B and Q. When we ordered it we were told it would be arriving tomorrow. On Monday I had a phone call to tell me I would be getting a phone call today to tell me what time it is coming. This morning I had a text message giving me a 2 hour window tomorrow, and now I have received a phone call to confirm the information in the text message. Good service, but it seems a bit of overkill for one piece of worktop! What is even more ridiculous is that the other two pieces of worktop are coming in a separate delivery on Monday. (Different size, so coming from a different place!)

[SparkOut]

The mounting for the arm snapped on my (lightweight, rimless, expensive) glasses last night. This morning I was at the door of Vision Express for 9am, well overdue for a new assessment anyway. At 9:15 I had been through health screening, at 9:30 I had the optician's assessment and new prescription, which had only a minuscule change. In the meantime, rather than sell me a massively expensive replacement pair, the staff had contacted the supplier of my original pair which is not made any more, and sourced a replacement for the snapped mounting at a cost of £30 instead of hundreds, and ordered it. So I still needed glasses in the interim. I ordered a new prescription pair for £29 reduced from £119 but they would not be available for approx 10 working days. So the manager dug around and found a pair with "somewhat similar" arms - well, at least the fixing to the lenses is pretty much the same- and transferred the arms to my existing lenses as a temporary measure so I could see until the replacement mounting arrived.

[Scurra]

Whoah! That is good service.

[Bunnylump]

Impressive! I, on the other hand, have now had to fork out a total of £750 for two pairs of glasses.

[clvrlad]

that's why I'm so glad i only need mine to drive the forklift at work...

[LAT]

I sent a case out to my daughter in southern Italy with summer clothes and a few sundry items she wanted. It was collected by a courier from our home on Friday lunchtime and delivered to the school where she is working today. Total cost was £31 (for up to 20 kg). Estimated date of arrival was Thursday so they bettered that by two days!
And one of the best things was their online chat service operating until 9.00 at night during the week which meant that when I had a couple of questions about things I could pack, I could get an instant answer from them. Even an email sent later in the evening had been answered by the time I got to work the next day.

Thank you sendmybag.com