Customer Service holes...... o2/DHL

I have, for a while, been thinking of upgrading my mobile telephone to a Blackberry from my reliable Nokia 6310i. Now, you may be surprised that a techno-geek business person hasn't yet upgraded to Blackberry, but the reasons are simply: (a) I am horribly loyal to Nokia (B) all the Blackberry's have awful audio characteristics! OK, there are Nokia options, but they are not as good as the Blackberry's at Blackberrying

So, last Thursday, I ordered a Blackberry Curve in silver, on a new tariff from o2. "Your phone will be with you Sir in 3/5 working days." On the next day, Friday, I went to my normal breakfast meeting and Mr DHL tried to deliver the parcel, so leaves note. At this point, you could call this fantastic service.....

As I was away from the weekend, I didn't pick the note up until Tuesday. I ring the number, and Mr DHL says: "I've left it with your neighbour." Fine, which one says I "I don't know! But I did leave it with him - not sure of the house name or number, but it was a bloke..."

At this point, I should add some background. In my days in the cost reduction market, one of the area's we addressed was - couriers. Turns out some have more "seepage" on certain small but high value items which are easier cashed, like - for instance: mobile phones. The worst ones were the networks using contract couriers, where seepage rates reached 50% on some routes.....

So, after calling the neighbours Mr DHL thinks he might have left it with without success, I call o2. Having explained the background, the lady says: "Well, its delivered, and they left it with Mr Gubby." Who's says I "well, he lives at your house. It distinctly says home delivered over dropped with neighbour." After explaining I am happily straight, and don't know a Mr Gubby, and that Mr DHL says he left it with someone else (to which she says its hence not o2's fault - well, guess I better complain to Vodafone then....); she rings Mr DHL who says he'll come round - some time in the next few days! But, until he does, they can't replace my phone....

I ring Mr DHL, who turns out to be - Mr Contract Courier! He knows exactly where he left it, except he can't remember the number of the house, but does now remember it was left with Mr Gubby. I ring o2 again, and am told that as its after 18:00 they can't do anything until tomorrow, and their policy is that the package can only be dropped with immediate neighbours - Nope, Mr Contract Courier failed on that one! I decide to use a bit of coercion - so I walk round every house in the estate, all 60, with my DHL card and a bottle of wine: the keeper of my phone gets a bottle of wine, and its a decent £20 bottle I have had for a while. And you know what, even though its a decent bottle of wine, no one has my phone, let alone knows a blonde Mr Gubby....

Boy, am I pissed off! Turns out its not o2's fault, but I can't have another phone until Mr DHL (actually, Mr Contract Courier who doesn't follow o2 policy) has confirmed the phone is not delivered - which he has already stated on his delivery note to o2, but not on the card he left me.

I think they may have a customer service problem.....

Todays update: At 22:10 last night (yes, you read that correctly....) Mr Contract Courier rings me to advise it was Mr Chris Guppy of No.53 who took delivery of my new 02 phone. Having rung there last night with no success (its a rental property), I did the same this morning without success "He's on holiday - or possibly moved!" Come back, ring o2, who agree to deliver a new Blackberry - but, I will be charged if I can't recover the Blackberry at No.53. No says I "well, that's DHL's policy - if you know where the phone is, its your responsibility to recover it." And there was I thinking I had a contract from o2, where in actual fact I have a random delivery policy from DHL - wonders never cease!

Why free newspapers are good, and why you should never add sugar to your drink!

Returning yesterday from a long day in London, I jumped on the 16:45 to Swansea for my trip back to Cardiff. I found a table seat in a busy commuter train, and was having a pleasant conversation while the guy on the opposite side of the table wrote his diary in long hand.

A chap comes in to the carriage, and wants the spare window seat next to the diarist/opposite me. The diarist gets up, and the chap dumps his briefcase and coat on the seat, and meal bag from the sandwich shop on the table. He gets in to his seat, sits down - and leans forward enough to dump his grande capucino over me/table.

Said coffee makes it way expressly over table towards me, but is firstly resisted by "London Lite" a freebie newspaper made of poor qaulity but highly absorbant paper - dam the editorial quality, it saved my shirt/tie! Two London Lite's later and a quick wipe with a wet-wipe from an adjacent table, and all I have now is a warm/damp left leg and a coffee soaked mobile and PDA which both still worked.

The mobile lost its speaker capability, but after a night on top of my boiler on a spare ceramic tile is now functioning perfectly. The PDA worked until I turned it off for the Vespa journey home, after which it gave up. I got home, opened the back (it was damp towards the top with coffee) and placed it on the same ceramic tile - it now also works.

Lesson1 - always travel with a freebie newspaper. At worst its great protection against fool's who try to eat on packed commuter trains, at best its highly absorbant. The fact it also claims to be a newspaper is a useful side benefit

Lesson2 - sugar conducts electricity, while water and most liquids once dry are pretty poor at it. Not only is sugar bad for you, its leathal to any piece of electronics. If you must dump your coffee over someone, make it a sugarless one - the compensation payment will be lower

NB: in the end I couldn't decide if this chaps greatest sin on that train was dumping the best part of a cup of coffee over me, or subjecting the rest of the train to his open-mouth eatting habits, or leaving his rubbish on the table when he departed at Swindon - perhaps the subject of a later pole!