Amusing Myself With Moben Kitchens.

I've decided to email every company that irritates me. Not people, for the moment, but I may expand my remit as and when I run out of companies I dislike.

This week, Moben Kitchens are up. If you haven't seen their advert, here's the one they broadcast before Xmas.



Now listen carefully to the woman 12 seconds in who gives out the telephone number. Hear it? Listen again if you didn't, as the sound quality isn't as good as the broadcast version on TV.

Right, that should explain this mail to Moben.

Why, in your current adverts, do you use an actress who can't say the word "three" to be the person to give out your telephone number?

While it is entertaining to hear your number as "oh eight hundred four won fwee four won fwee" it is beginning to grate somewhat.

How badly did the other actresses say it so that you felt she would be the best?

Any information would be gratefully received. Plus if you'd like me to do the voice over, I am incredibly cheap, but I do sound Northern.

Oddly enough I've not had a reply yet.

The Clear And Helpful Pricing Of Sainsbury's



In case you can't see it well enough there are three separate prices for the same product (loose cauliflower) varying from £1.39 to £1.49.

I mentioned this to Customer Services instore and was told that it might have been due to VAT changes. I pointed out that fresh vegetables were VAT exempt, and left.

Complaining To Optimax About Their Advert

Dear Optimax

In your current advertising campaign, you suggest we should "wake up to laser eye surgery". Since I've heard this, I've been beseiged with nightmares of waking up to laser eye surgery.

I've now heard a woman in your advert say that she feels more awake. I can believe this, as I am now too terrified to sleep - in case I too wake up to laser eye surgery.

May I suggest you re-phrase the lines in your adverts? Or send me some sleeping tablets and a metal eye mask that I can lock. Or do you know of a way I can stop laser eye surgery from happening to me?

Any information you may have would be gratefully received as I haven't slept since 2009.

Received a reply from "Sarah Snowdon" at their Customer Services, dated 11 days ago.

So I replied with:

Dear Sarah,

I am living in some kind of Kafka-esque waking nightmare. I've just submitted a comment to your website, and I discover that you sent me a reply 11 days prior to me commenting.

Have I already woken up to laser eye surgery and am now living in the future? Or can I now see through time? If you are still living in 10th January, I'd advise you to put a bet on Alan Johnson resigning from the Shadow Cabinet. You can then retire from your job and move to the Bahamas.

I think you would enjoy that.

Many thanks

Complaining To WH Smith, Is There Any Point?

Before Xmas our family flew to Barcelona, and we departed from Gatwick Airport. Normally this is quite straightforward, so we weren't expecting to discover that the Gatwick North WH Smith is so much worse a shopping experience than the ones in Gatwick South that we normally visit.

When we got back from Barcelona, we submitted the following complaint via the WH Smith website.

My partner is a wheelchair user and attempted to use your air-side shop at Gatwick's North terminal on Friday 3rd December at approximately 6am.

Having selected her items for purchase she queued for over 10 mins before getting to the entrance to the till area. At this point she was unable to proceed as the barriers were too narrow to allow wheelchair access and too heavy for her to move. Neither member of till staff offered her any assistance, and despite her attempts to get around the back of the barriers, she was unable to complete her purchase. When she then moved out of the shop to get my assistance, the staff member moving the newspaper trolleys towards the shop pushed them into her and pushed her backwards into the shop.

She was extremely upset and hurt by this. She finds leaving the house to be stressful enough and this was supposed to be the start of a relaxing trip to Barcelona. Suffice to say, this was not the way in which we wished it to proceed.

When I went back into the shop to ask why the barriers were not wide enough to allow wheelchair access, the "manager" said that she'd had no other complaints about them and told me that she "didn't design the layout" of the shop. Not exactly the ideal attitude for a representative of your organisation, I would suggest, nor particularly
aware of the present Disability legislation.

Could you please confirm whether the queue barriers in all of your stores are wide enough for a wheelchair to navigate easily, or is the Gatwick North store something of a novelty? Could you also please confirm whether your staff receive any training on how to deal with disabled customers or whether the "manager" I spoke to an aberration on an otherwise exemplary staff training policy?

Any information or comments you have would be gratefully received.

We received the obligatory auto-response thanking us for our email; "We appreciate the time you have taken to contact us. We take all of our customer comments seriously and want to make sure we fully investigate your concerns before responding to you."

Ominously, the last line said "Thank you for your patience."

So I waited three weeks, during which time we heard not a peep out of them, and then sent them this:

Any possibility of an actual response to my complaint? I feel three weeks would give you sufficient time to speak to any and all staff concerned, so I am disappointed not to receive anything from you apart from this auto response.

Quite surprisingly, I got a reply two days later, and not just an auto-response. Although they did thank me for my email.

"I'm sorry that you have not recived a reply from us. Please can you reply to this email, detailing your enquiry again, and we will endeavour to reply as quickly as possible."

So I replied with the text of the original mail and got this reply three days after that. Twenty-four days after the complaint was first submitted, if you're keeping count.

Thank you for your email of 28 December 2010, expressing your disappointment with the level of service you received at our Gatwick North store.

I sincerely regret this situation and can confirm that all aisles should be wide enough to be easily accessible for wheelchair users. I have immediately passed your feedback to the Gatwick site so this can be addressed

We are committed to offering excellent customer service so it is always a great disappointment when we hear that we are not achieving this. Rest assured our Store Manager has addressed this matter as an urgent training issue with all members of staff and we will take any steps necessary to ensure that this standard of service is never repeated.

I am very sorry that we have let you down on this occasion. I do, however, appreciate the time you have taken to bring this matter to my attention and if I can be of any assistance to you in the future, please feel welcome to contact me.

You may note the lack of actual answers to my question about any training the staff receive on how to interact with disabled customers. And I'm delighted that the aisles are wide enough for a wheelchair. Unfortunately, I asked about the checkout queue barriers. And mentioning you'll "take any steps" to a wheelchair user is surely taking the piss, no?

I have replied to their email and if I get anything back, I'll post it here.