I’ve been trying to get my daughter’s laptop (bought last year) fixed by Currys PC World since May. I think it needs a new battery. It fails to charge after only nine months, so not a serious issue and one I could fix myself, but that would invalidate the warranty.
I emailed its support team, Team Knowhow, detailing how I came to this conclusion (not difficult, and I work in IT), and when there was no response after a couple of weeks, I tried Twitter. I was eventually told someone was looking into it, but then nothing for a few weeks other than automated Twitter responses.
I got really fed up as my daughter needs it for her GCSEs but it has to be constantly plugged into the mains.
I wrote to customer services requesting contact before the end of June. July came and no response. I then emailed the chief executive and got an automated response – from Team Knowhow.
The warranty runs out in a couple of months, and I know I’ll have to argue about this all over again, even assuming a human can be bothered to reply.
I imagine I’m in a huge queue of annoyed punters.
RL, Rode, Somerset
Your letter is yet another example of customer service departments being swamped with queries and unable to cope. Like many others, you were unable to get in touch with Team Knowhow between May and July due to the impact of Covid-19. After our intervention, you were contacted by the chief executive’s office. It arranged to collect the laptop, repair it and return it. The issue has been satisfactorily resolved.
Currys PC World says: “We are sorry RL didn’t receive the standard of customer service we normally expect of ourselves. We have apologised and offered a gesture of goodwill. Our customer is happy with the resolution.”
The goodwill was £50. But it should not have taken our approach to spur the company into action.
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