Why Do We Put Up With Poor Customer Service In The UK?

In 2010 when Best Buy opened its first UK Store I thought great!  We'll now have an electrical store that has as its best selling point, excellent customer support and technical knowledge.

Sadly at the end of 2011 they announced that they were closing all their UK stores and would no longer be trading in the UK.

It seems that we don't want good customer service and we are happy to carry on with the poor customer service we tend to receive in the UK.


At the moment we're having a new kitchen installed so we've been out buying a couple of electrical appliances.

Times are tough at the moment in the Retail Sector so we decided to support a locally run shop that has a reputation for good customer service.

Within 2 days of our brand new Fridge Freezer having been delivered the Frost-Free freezer section from Frosting up so we called Supervision and was told to call Hoover.  We rang Hoover who said it would cost us £100 plus parts to fix the problem.

ITS TWO DAYS OLD AND THEY WANT TO CHARGE US TO FIX IT!!


We went back to Supervision who MOANED at us because they would have to sort this out with Hoover which is a painful process for them.

We had to threaten legal action before they would finally do something about - they didnt want to repair it and gave us our money back instead - they didnt even appologise and offer to sell us something else, clearly they are doing so well at the moment they can turn away customers and their money.

I would stronly recomment that you DO NOT BUY from SUPERVISION as despite their website claiming "Excellent Customer support" their customer service is appauling.

We need to buy an under-the-counter Freezer as well so not only have they lost out on one sale, but two.

We ended up buying a Fridge Freezer from Currys and the small Freezer from Comet.

Both of these have a fantastic Customer Services department at their Head Offices that are just one phone call away and whenever we've had problems with them in the past (and there have only been 1 or 2 over the years) they have always sorted them out straight away and we have purchased several items from them again because of this.

We will NEVER be shopping at Supervision again and strongly recommend that you don't either, unless of course you like poor customer service.

Best Buy Open First UK Store

This May Bank Holiday weekend the US giant Best Buy open their first electrical retail outlet in the UK - offering fantastically low prices with knowledgeable staff (9 weeks of training each) who aren't on commission and want to help you.

DSG International (Currys & PC World) and COMET are in for a huge shock as more new Best Buy stores are on their way.

I can remember assisting in the Currys 'Big Bang' project where they moved pretty much all the stock in the warehouse out on to the shop floor so if you wanted to buy a TV you didn't need a sales person, you simply picked up the box and dragged it to the cash desk!

They even opened new stores that didn't have a warehouse at all, when a delivery arrived it was scanned on to the system as it came in the back door and went straight out on to the shop floor!  This was a HUGE advancement and now Best Buy is on the scene they'd better come up with another idea this big else they'll quickly lose market share and Best Buy will take over.

Electrical retailing in the UK is about to change, forever.   How will it change?  Only time will tell - we'll have to see how COMET and DSG International fight back.