Terry Prone: My virtual customer service shoots itself in the foot
But Budget Service Have Can Virtual Its Youtube picture: Customer Prices Are Issues Attractive
A couple of years ago I bought sheepskin slippers in Lidl, dirt cheap. Not that I was going to actually wear them, mind you.
Nothing so unglamorous would ever touch feet which have a profound sense of entitlement to 4in stilettos. But I have this wheelie bag containing things I’d never in my right mind put on, but which is a kind of luggage insurance policy against hospitalisation.
If you suddenly end up in hospital, you need a bag with a clean (or new) nightdress for starters because, although you may sleep at home in ratty old T-shirts and panties, that will not do in a bed in Ward 3. Nor will 4in heels.
So when I saw the slippers in Lidl, I believed they were headed for the emergency bag. Trying them on at home and discovering their blissful comfort was a surprise which led to me wearing them often in my home and also when gardening. They went into the washing machine several times and — after drying on the windowsill stuffed with paper towels — came up as good as new.
That was why, when I spotted the exact same dead-ringer slippers in the Lidl catalogue a fortnight ago, I was ecstatic.
Even more so at their price: €17.99. I might, I thought, totally lose the run of myself and buy one brown pair and one black pair.
Bank holiday Monday, when these slippers were going on sale, I fruitlessly searched for them, then asked a man packing the shelves for help. He obligingly slashed open several cartons with a Stanley knife, revealing neatly-stored slippers. Slippers, but not as we wanted them.
He and his pal shrugged and explained that the ones I sought obviously hadn’t come in. They might come in on the Thursday despatch, they hazarded. How, I asked, could I find out? They told me of a customer service WhatsApp number on a sign at the exit. I took a photo of it before visiting the other Swords Lidl, which had the same wrong slippers the first had, but none of the sheepskin ones in the ad.
When I protested to another packing man that the ad constituted an offer that should be fulfilled, he said something about the supply chain which implied it was as mysterious and beyond understanding as global warming.
I went home, where I learned that the WhatsApp customer service line would cost me 30 minutes of my time.
Instead I went online, where I encountered LiA, who had surprisingly blue hair and a happy aspect to her.
“Hi there!” She said. Or maybe wrote, because the greeting was in print.
“I’m LiA and I am here to help you with any questions you may have. To better assist you, please type a short description of your query.” I obliged, and back LiA came with a pleasingly positive response.
“We can certainly help you with that,” she told me. “Could you mention the name of the product? E.g. cordless hedge trimmer.”
My reply: “Two Swords, Dublin stores yesterday didn’t have the €17.99 sheepskin slippers in the catalogue. Are they anywhere else or are they just late?”
“Was it on sale in the last 14 days?” LiA asked, to which I replied: “Irrelevant question.”
“Not sure I understood this correctly,” LiA told me.
What’s not to understand when you’re told you’ve asked an irrelevant question? Still resolved to be helpful, LiA then cheerily asked: “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“You didn’t help me with this,” I snapped, having seriously gone off her and her blue hair.
“Oops! My mistake, Maybe I misunderstood,” LiA responded, showing a questionable grasp of the comma.
LiA then made a little speech about how their staff knock themselves out to ensure that their stores “have access to our whole product range at all times”.
She apologised and promised she would register my complaint to prevent future occurrences, which was fine and dandy for everybody other than me, right now, in the present tense.
But let me not interrupt LiA’s determination to take me more than seriously. She wanted me to confirm the store involved.
Now all she had to do, as a good little avatar, was look back at the correspondence, but no, I had to do the work for her.
“I already did,” I pointed out. “You have two stores in Swords. Them.”
I swear to God, she came back saying she was finding too many stores in Swords and could I narrow it down for her by picking an area or street? THEIR stores, remember. Then she wanted to know when I visited the store.
Because my mood was now somewhere between irritated and murderous, my response went like this: “WTF has that got to do with anything? 9am.”
Having elicited more information from me, LiA promised this would be escalated to their regional team and was there anything else she could help me with?
“OK, consistency here,” I answered. “You didn’t help with any previous queries, you’re not helping with this one. My breath is bated to find out what your regional team will contribute.”
She couldn’t understand that either and wanted clarification. I told her each of my inputs had been completely clear.
On Tuesday, ‘Ms X’ (real name omitted to protect her identity) emailed me.
“Dear Prone,” her missive began. As a way to mollify a pissed-off customer, that greeting wasn’t ideal.
She asked for information, and — credit to me, here — I didn’t tell her to go through the on-the-record details provided to LiA and save Lidl’s customer time. I did a civil response which didn’t address her as Dear ‘X’ and which included a shot of the original ad.
Dear ‘Ms X’,
The slippers, bottom right-hand side of the picture below, are not available in either of your Swords stores or your Malahide Road store. Yes, you have slippers — nothing like these. I bought a pair of these a couple of years ago from you and they’re super. Why are you offering them if you don’t have them?
The following day, ‘Ms X’ replied, continuing to address me as Prone.
“I’m sorry that on your recent visit, the slippers were sold out despite being advertised on a leaflet,” she said.
Not true. They were not sold out. They had (according to Lidl’s store workers, never been there. “Due to the nature of retail, demand can sometimes outweigh supply,” she went on, offering an unsought lecture on an irrelevant generality.
Over the weekend, I found the slippers in a Lidl north of the border and bought them.
The chain being ropy at customer service doesn’t mean I’ve to shoot myself in the foot, so to speak.