From David Le Couilliard.
WITH regard to the recent Think Twice, Buy Local campaign, I thought it was time to say that the reason many of us either buy online, or while we are visiting the UK, is because of the poor service offered locally, in terms of general customer service. Three recent examples I can recall for local purchases gone wrong are as follows.

I visited a local electrical dealer to purchase a new TV. I paid the asking price, and arranged a delivery time with the salesperson. I waited in on the morning of the expected delivery, but nothing. I called the retailer, and was told that their installation engineer had the day off.

I told them how unhappy I was to have wasted a morning waiting for them, and was told I could pick it up. I then insisted on the delivery or a refund. I took delivery of the TV later that day, but as the person who eventually delivered it was not an installation person, I did it myself. I am competent to do this, but I know many would not be, and this is in my opinion poor customer service. You spend £1,600 and you get let down.

Secondly, I purchased a sofa, costing just under £2000. I ordered the sofa on 10 December last year, and it still hadn’t arrived by the beginning of May. During many visits to the showroom and phone calls on top, I was promised seven days, then 14 days and on it went. When I asked for my money back I was then told five days.

A sofa then arrived, but not the one I had ordered. It was made to look like the one I had ordered, but was a poor quality copy. When I complained, I was told that it was the same size though. Well, that may have been true, but is wasn’t worth 2,000 pence let alone the price I had paid.

On top of this, the sofa didn’t have protective caps on the feet, and the nails protruding from them, which looked as though they had been hammered in with a fork, had ripped through my wooden floor. The sofa went back, and I had the one I had originally paid for delivered in three days, from another local retailer, who I will use again.

Finally, I made the mistake of trying that electrical dealer again for my Sky TV package. I was disappointed, but not surprised that I still haven’t received what I asked for, or paid for, as Sky tell me that the order they received from the dealer doesn’t match what I asked for. I have now dealt with Sky directly and everything is sorted.

Until many local retailers wake up to what customers expect in return for staying loyal to locals, that simply being good customer service, I’m sorry to be saying this, being a proud bean, but my personal campaign is now: Buy Local? Think Twice! My attitude won’t change until theirs does.
11 Clos de l’Abri,
Grande Route de la Côte,
St Clement.