Mr Baxter's comments to Comet's Right of Reply response.

6 September 2001

Dear Jon

The reply from Comets does little to give me any confidence in their system. Questions are not answered, specifically:

1) why no work was started on the unit until two weeks has passed from the date that I took it in to the store
2) why you cannot call the store and get some interest there on your behalf
3) why it took over a week to return the unit to me after it had been fixed (it was fixed on a Tuesday and not sent for packing/despatch until the following Saturday, and then it took until the following Thursday to find its wayh back to the store.
4) why, when I did go into the store to chase the problem up, there is no overall store manager. I was informed that there are three or four managers - any one of whom would help me. Far from helping all the nominated person did was to hand me over to the 'Service and Repairs' manager, and then return to the more interesting part of her work - sales.
5) even allowing for unforseen hold-ups in their system, why did it take so long to fix when all that was done was to 'Release the Mechanism'
6) As far as I can see, Comet have no real concept of customer 'After Care' - I was luck eventually to find someone who did ring me back and keep me posted, but even she said that she was getting caustic comments from her colleagues when she chased up my complaint.

In situations like this, I believe that the customer should be able to return to the shop where the unit was purchased and pass the problem over to someone there who has responsibility. I cannot imagine that John Lewis for example would not take up the complaint on behalf of the customer and see it through to a satisfactory conclusion.

Comet's reply also said that 'complaints of this nature are very rare.'. I find this hard to believe, since both my HiFi units have caused problems to their system, and whilst I was in the store on the last occasion, reporting my faulty unit there was a very irate customer who had been without a cooker for over a week - she was also complaining about nobody caring or seeming to do anything.

I have already decided that if my unit fails again, it will not be touched by another Comet person, I will pay to have it repaired at a recognised Sony service centre. Then when my insurance for years 2 to 5 expires, I will claim the refund that I am entitled to.

Far from inspiring me with hope, the reply from Comet only confirms that they have poor respect for their customers, and that they need to spend some effort in the customer relationship department.

Yours faithfully

Colin Baxter