Tuesday 10 November 2015

Of More Deliveries And Yet More Laundry

Dear Currys,

I am expecting the delivery of my new washing machine on Saturday.  I have been trying to find a way of giving you information so that your delivery driver does not end up in a shed, in a field, several miles away, on the wrong side of a river, which is where his satnav will probably try to lead him if he doesn’t know this address.  

When I placed the order I am afraid I did not see any option to give you a message with helpful instructions, but I was pleased to see a little chat box open and I was able to have a discussion with someone at a keyboard in your office which, unfortunately, proved in the end not to be so very edifying.  The typist in your online chat facility gave me a telephone number to ring.  I rang and ended up in a telephone-tree forest, punching in numbers and stars, before being referred back, eventually, to the website whereupon the automatic voice dismissed me with a rather overly familiar, “Goodbye”.  I looked (again) at your website and tried the order tracking information function, but neither of the two (two?) order numbers that appear on my confirmation e-mail seemed to be recognised … Yes, I tried both after typing in all the information again.  The system’s helpful message was,

"YOUR ITEM IS PROVING A LITTLE TRICKY TO FIND, BUT DON'T WORRY WE HAVE A FEW OTHER OPTIONS UP OUR SLEEVE YET.”

Some of the options up your corporate singular sleeve include more telephone numbers for which the customer pays a rate over and above that on his or her telephone plan.  I’m not quite sure I feel sufficiently motivated to pay you more money simply to be helpful and save your driver time and frustration.  I’m not feeling the love yet, hence this slightly bemused and ever-so-slightly-aggrieved e-mail.  Trying to contact you with helpful information should not be so difficult or time-consuming.  One is inclined to lose confidence.  Given my professional hourly rate I have now, regrettably, more than used up last weekend’s trumpeted special discount on my washing machine.
I live on a boat moored on the river adjacent to the farm at the delivery address.  I’m afraid I shall need to request a more accurate time of delivery than the twelve-hour window I have been given, since my boat engine is being repaired and I shall need to disconnect my mains electric hookup and haul my fifty-foot steel narrowboat singlehandedly, into a position to make the delivery and installation easier, probably inconveniencing the owner of the neighbouring mooring.  I hope it isn’t too windy on Saturday, or your delivery driver may need a raft if I lose the mooring rope (just joking … I hope).  I shall make sure the boat is firmly staked and tied before the delivery arrives, if you could just tell me when that is likely to be.  I can probably drag the boat back into position while the machine is being installed, so I can plug the electricity back in for when the machine will be ready to be tested.  I suggest that for maximum safety the delivery arrives well within the 7am to 7pm margins in order to take best advantage of available daylight.  I screwed all the steps leading down the riverbank to the jetty firmly back into place last week, so they are now safe, but the descent is still best done in the light.

The information your driver will need is my telephone number ************* and he will need to use his satnav only to find the road, “****** ****”.  Simply entering the postcode, **** *** will probably lead him astray as described above - I have no idea why, it just does.  The ghosts of lost delivery drivers haunt the Fens.  Once on ******* ******, he needs to keep the river on his left all the way down and into the farmyard.  Forget following any other roads, just keep the river on the left and phone me as he approaches so I can meet him in the farmyard.  It really is the end of the road.  Please could you make sure the delivery company passes this information on to the driver.  It is quite inconvenient for all when delivery drivers become lost in the Fens, or worse still, give up and try to find their way home.
I assume that, once my washing machine has been loaded on to your vehicle, there will be a way of tracking my order and the driver’s progress?  Twelve hours is a long time to be waiting in ignorance and I am sure that a company that specialises in selling high-tech equipment, as Currys does, has an efficient way of working this out.  Perhaps you could advise if there are any special secret codes I need in order to be able to do this from the order tracking information page on your website so that I don’t get the website's rather irritating “tricky to find” message again.

I hope this provides you with helpful information and I am very much looking forward to the delivery of my new washing machine.  I spent many hours at a laundrette in a nearby town last weekend, because I had almost run out of clean clothes.  I’m not altogether clear how the “next-day-delivery” banner on your website order page became seven days, but the discrepancy did mar my planned laundry schedule.  I’m sure you appreciate that storage for clothes is at a premium in a restricted living space.  I did, however, meet some very interesting people at the laundrette and there was plenty of time to chat given the long queue for the machines.

My very best wishes to you and your fellow workers at Currys and, as the French would say, “I await my new washing machine with impatience”, which I feel has more of an emotional commitment than the English understatement I employed in the previous paragraph.

With kind regards,

etc etc



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