The Dutch are infamous for terrible customer service. Customer service, it is said, is rude (probably true, by American standards), can never help you in the way you want to be helped (likely to be true), and just generally makes a bad situation even worse (maybe this is true).
Somehow, though--maybe it's because I do most of my customer-service interactions when people are actually bright ad perky--I've managed to avoid getting too screwed over in terms of getting service. At the very least, (gemeente official business notwithstanding) I've come to terms with the fact that if I'm getting bottom-euro prices it's not because they've hired Service Sally to man the desk when it comes to complaints.
But even my luck runs out, and in our case, it was with BCC. You'd think that a web retailer--and a major web retailer, at that--would have the ability to list merchandise that is out of stock as "niet in vooraad" instead of allowing you to pay for it and expect next-day delivery. And then, when you call them the next day, you find out (after a 2-hour wait on the phone, no less) that they are unable to give you any information on your order. And when you reach out with Facebook, only then do you find out that it's out of stock and will take between 5-10 days to arrive.
And now, on the promised day of arrival (10 days yippee), lo and behold, the washer which was supposed to have been delivered this morning is nowhere in sight, and we just found out (via FB again, after over an hour on the phone and getting nowhere near customer service) that there was something wrong with the scheduling system and we'll have to wait for another 5 days. I've been doing the laundry by hand for the past week (because the cleaners charges at least 27 euros each time) and it's just plain fucking nuts, especially since one of their services they claim to offer is next-day delivery.
Look: I'm willing to accept a longer delivery time, but for fuck's sake don't dick your customers around like this. Either say outright that it will take 5-7 days to deliver shit, or don't deliver shit at all. And 'fess up to not having stuff in stock. Yeah, maybe you might lose that sale, but two weeks without being able to do laundry is going to lose you a customer. Several, if I have my way, and many, if there are truly that many pissed off people on their Facebook page.
Somehow, though--maybe it's because I do most of my customer-service interactions when people are actually bright ad perky--I've managed to avoid getting too screwed over in terms of getting service. At the very least, (gemeente official business notwithstanding) I've come to terms with the fact that if I'm getting bottom-euro prices it's not because they've hired Service Sally to man the desk when it comes to complaints.
But even my luck runs out, and in our case, it was with BCC. You'd think that a web retailer--and a major web retailer, at that--would have the ability to list merchandise that is out of stock as "niet in vooraad" instead of allowing you to pay for it and expect next-day delivery. And then, when you call them the next day, you find out (after a 2-hour wait on the phone, no less) that they are unable to give you any information on your order. And when you reach out with Facebook, only then do you find out that it's out of stock and will take between 5-10 days to arrive.
And now, on the promised day of arrival (10 days yippee), lo and behold, the washer which was supposed to have been delivered this morning is nowhere in sight, and we just found out (via FB again, after over an hour on the phone and getting nowhere near customer service) that there was something wrong with the scheduling system and we'll have to wait for another 5 days. I've been doing the laundry by hand for the past week (because the cleaners charges at least 27 euros each time) and it's just plain fucking nuts, especially since one of their services they claim to offer is next-day delivery.
Look: I'm willing to accept a longer delivery time, but for fuck's sake don't dick your customers around like this. Either say outright that it will take 5-7 days to deliver shit, or don't deliver shit at all. And 'fess up to not having stuff in stock. Yeah, maybe you might lose that sale, but two weeks without being able to do laundry is going to lose you a customer. Several, if I have my way, and many, if there are truly that many pissed off people on their Facebook page.
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