Twice in the last few days I’ve had bad service from retailers – once from Homebase (told me something was in stock, drive to the store to find it wasn’t) and Mr Ink (given the wrong ink cartridge again). On neither occasion did anyone say “sorry” despite it clearly being their fault. I asked to see the manager in Homebase to explain why I was unhappy and he clearly had no concept of why I felt they should have apologised. I didn’t bother in the ink shop as it would have been equally useless.

We all make mistakes, but we are judged by how we put things right. Does nobody care about customer service any more ?

From experience Homebase employ unhappy ignorant staff, ignorant of anything to do with DIY, not to the public.

Oh and theyre so expensive comapred to Wickes or Toolstation.

It’s my experience that people try hard not to say sorry in a business context as it feels like a personal admission of fault when chances are it was “the machine” that was at fault, not the individual you are talking to.

Not saying it’s right, but that’s what I think it is.

Maybe something to do with getting paid minimum wage?

Saying “sorry” could imply an acceptance of blame I suppose, something that companies are twitchy to do in case you decide to get lawyers involved.

Sucks though, it’s happened to me any number of times and a sincere apology would’ve been all it would have taken to make a happy customer again.

Nothing to do with minimum wage, more to do with poor training I think.

I also think it is the admitting liability thing that everyone is worried about nowadays and not saying sorry is now part of their training.

Shame really.

Nothing to do with minimum wage, more to do with poor training I think.

How do you train people to care? Better to treat your staff better in the first place, something the retail industry is notoriously poor at.

symptomatic of life in general IMHO – try driving and se how peol respond when they misjudge something 😯
you will see plenty of examples on here of folk being worng and abusive then just going away rather than admit their error. People dont seem to want to be able to take responsibility or have the self confidence to admit they are wrong for some reason.

I suspect low wages and just not GAS also contribute in the cases above that you cite.

Nothing to do with minimum wage

Working in the above shops is probably not a great experience. Having to put up with people screaming at you all day whilst not getting paid very much and with little training in how to deal with customers would piss most people off.

Buy everything from John Lewis and you won’t have this problem.

I know what you mean though. I returned a defective teapot to Tesco recently and the woman spent about five minutes faffing with her till doing the refund before it occurred to her to say sorry as I was leaving.

We’d had to make tea in a jug for a few days! Surely that’s against the Geneva Convention or something?

But the week before I returned some defective slippers to M&S and the woman gave me my cash back in less than one minute and was very apologetic.

While some people are nicer than others anyway, I have to agree with the points about company culture and treatment of staff.

Mary Portas ( Queen of shops) has a telly programme dedicated to the bad service that we Brits have to endure. Channel 4 Wednesdays at 9.00p.m.

Fewer people seem to be able to say those magic words like sorry or thankyou.

My firm encourages us to apologise when things go wrong, to take ‘ownership’ of the issue. It doesn’t matter that its the machine or someone in a call centre 3000 miles away that is at fault. The customer just wants to hear someone say sorry. (OK, normally they want compensation, a good rant and to jab a finger at someone, but sorry still doesn’t hurt 🙂 )

My firm encourages us to apologise when things go wrong, to take ‘ownership’ of the issue. It doesn’t matter that its the machine or someone in a call centre 3000 miles away that is at fault. The customer just wants to hear someone say sorry. (OK, normally they want compensation, a good rant and to jab a finger at someone, but sorry still doesn’t hurt )

Exactly.

Crap service is definitely a wider problem.

More often than not, when I fill up with fuel, the sales assistant has a mobile phone pressed to their ear or are chatting to a friend or otherwise doing anything apart from paying attention to what they’re doing. I find it incredibly rude.

I know what you mean though. I returned a defective teapot to Tesco recently and the woman spent about five minutes faffing with her till doing the refund before it occurred to her to say sorry as I was leaving

The woman in Tescos probably spent the five minutes wondering why you couldn’t just chuck a teabag in a cup! 🙂
people just want everything these days!