Call Centres: Pros & Cons

Today, I had intended to have a bit of a winge on the subject of call centres, but then - just half an hour ago - I took a call that almost cancelled out in my mind the call centre horrors of the past weekend.

Allow me to explain: I have, for about two months now, been on the case of a certain, well-known, British mother and baby store. Their name would suggest they care about mothers. Their demeanour says otherwise.

For Christmas, we bought Lucy a little car that she sits in and either pushes herself, or gets pushed along in. It cost £50 and had a horn in it that Lucy loved to press. After about a fortnight, the horn ceased to work. We changed the batteries in it. Nowt. It was broken after two weeks, and hadn't been used excessively. Clearly, a faulty product.

The shop that "cares about mothers" has spent the last two months sending us here and there, promising to call us back, and then not (surely the international call centre motto - "we'll call you back. Honest"), and generally messing us around. Eventually, yesterday, I got them to agree to send a whole new vehicle for my daughter's enjoyment (after they offered to send me some vouchers that wouldn't have been enough to pay for the car park). Thank you to them for that, but it doesn't quite cancel out the last couple of months in my head.

Meanwhile, my wife has been on to a famous catalogue store (they like chaps that don't cost anything. That one's a bit cryptic, I'm afraid) who, also for several months, have singularly failed to pick up a large, chipped-upon-delivery, flat-pack toybox, whilst simultaneouly invoicing us for it. She's called them six times over the last few weeks, and they keep insisting they're coming. But they haven't. If they don't soon, I'm going to have a bonfire in the garden.

So, my rant was well-formed in my head, until a chap from a call-centre cold-called me. Normally, that's a recipe for a tirade of abuse on my part for wasting my time, but this lovely man offered me a free-upgrade on my mobile phone. Bearing in mind my mobile looks like it's been in a bonfire with a chipped flat-pack toybox, and then stamped on, I was very pleased to make arrangements for a new phone to arrive in my workplace tomorrow morning.

So, Boo for call centres. And Hurrah for call centres.

Or something.