To: executive.office@three.co.uk
My name is Alan Potter, I am a long-time three customer.
When my wife’s phone contract recently expired, I suggested she move to Three. She ordered a nice new Samsung Galaxy S II, on the Text500 contract. That was on Monday 18th July (order number xxxxxxxx). We arranged delivery would be on the Thursday of that week (21-Jul), and waited for the phone to arrive.
It didn’t.
Nor did it arrive on the Friday.
I phoned Three’s customer service. They told me that because there was already a Three account using the bank details I had given to Three (i.e. my Three account), then Three would want to see a bank statement to be sure that my wife was allowed to Direct Debit that account. All that Three would need to see would be the account name. That doesn’t really seem to stand up to scrutiny as you already knew the account name, and any credit ratings agency would have been able to give you all the information you needed. But I can let that slide.
I asked why nobody had phoned us and told us this before the date when the phone was due to be delivered. I asked when we would have been phoned. The customer service rep told me that the back office would do the calling, they were busy just now and he did not know when or if we would be contacted.
After listening to him give this kind of excuse for a couple of minutes I gave up and told him that I was not happy about this. At this point someone with a bit of savvy – or leeway – could still have saved the deal by apologising, offering a complimentary month’s line rental or something similar, and promising to get the phone to us next day. But no, there was nothing like that. Just a demand to see my bank statement.
So I cancelled the deal.
I understand that you guys want to give a cheap service and so you have lowest common denominator customer service. I get that. But you’ve taken it too far here. If you promise to deliver a phone on a particular day, you should deliver it. If you’re going to fail to deliver it, and you know you’re going to fail to deliver it, you must phone the (potential) customer beforehand in case that customer is taking a day off work to receive the package.
Yours faithfully,
Alan Potter
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