Time

Ok. I think it is worth chronicling my experiences with Time Computers' Customer Services department. For posterity, see.

My laptop died a couple of weeks ago. It refused to start up, choosing instead to show me a lovely message about the system file being damaged or missing. Insert, it suggested, the Reload disk to sort it out. This I did, figuring that if the worst came to the worst, I could just use the reload disks to reinstall Windows.

Predictably, the Worst did, in fact come to the aforementioned Worst. And the Worst that the Worst came to was worse than the Worst that I had presupposed. Worse than Worst, it was the Ultimate Worst. Well, maybe not Ultimate, but pretty Worse. Worstly so. The second of the three reload disks was knackered.

So I phoned the Software support line (at £1 per minute) and spoke to a nice man about my problem. It's no problem at all, said he. I will simply send you a new set of disks which will right the wrongs and make the world a better place in which to live. 3 to 4 working days.

Splendid.

2 weeks later, the disks had not arrived.

So I phoned Time Customer Services this afternoon, to make enquiries. After 40 minutes on hold, the little boy who answered seemed confused when I said that it hadn't arrived. 'But my system says we dispatched it on the 12th' he said. He seemed to be having difficulty with the concept that post does not always reach it's intended destination. Having spent several minutes crossing this hurdle, we eventually agreed that I did not have the disks.

Next hurdle: 'I'll re-order it, sir' he said. 'It'll be 4-5 working days.'

'Not good enough' I said. 'I've been without my laptop for 2 weeks now. Having paid about £300 for a Gold Service Plan I think it would be reasonable for me to expact some sort of next day delivery service.'

'I'm afraid I can't do that sir,' he said (sounding eerily like HAL9000) 'Our procedure is to order it up, my manager has to authorise it, then it gets authorised again and then it gets sent out by 2nd class mail.'

2nd Class??? Do they know that the Post Office loses about 14 million items of post a year - most of which is second class? And that the only real guarantee that they make with 2nd class is that it may get there. Eventually.

'Is there nothing you can do to speed this process up? Get it sent registered, first class, anything'

'No'

'Is there anything your manager can do?'

'No'

'Can I speak to your manager?'

'No. He's at lunch.'

At lunch? At 3pm on a friday afternoon? Down the pub getting lagered up, more like: 'Can you get him to phone me when he get back from... lunch?'

'No. He doesn't speak to customers.'

Doesn't speak to customers? What sort of call-centre manager are we dealing with here? Time to remind him that I paid £300 for this crappy service: 'I paid £300 for a Gold Service Plan and this is the best you can do?'

'Yes.'

'Tell me,' I said, 'why I had to wait 40 minutes for someone to answer the phone? Is it because Time's customer service is so appalingly bad that thousands of people have to phone up to complain? Or is it just that Time are too tight to employ enough people on their call centre? Either way, Time would seem to be settling for a policy of inferior customer service.'

'I don't know.'

'I didn't think you would.'