What's the story with bad customer service?

After reaching the top of a long lunchtime queue with her pasta salad, a woman asked for a fork. "Nah, we don't have any," mumbled the bored till operator. She asked if he was sure (it was a large supermarket, after all) and pointed out that, without a fork, the salad wasn't much use to her, but he'd already moved on to serving the next customer - Pricewatch, as it happens.

She briefly considered making a scene, or at the very least asking for her money back so she could spend it elsewhere, but, after a moment's hesitation, decided against it and walked out into the rain, no doubt fuming at his uselessness and her inability to stand up to it.

Bad customer service experiences, from petty incidents such as this one to considerably more frustrating and financially damaging ones, are what have prompted most Pricewatch readers to get in touch over recent years. And it's hardly surprising there are such high levels of discontent. According to an EU-wide study of customer service conducted last year on behalf of the Institute of Customer Service (ICS), the Republic of Ireland was to be found languishing in the bottom quarter of the table when it came to providing adequate levels of service.

The roll of dishonour is long, with some cable television companies, airlines, a host of phone and broadband providers and a handful of supermarkets and utilities jostling for position at the top of our list of businesses who routinely let their paying customers down.

Businesses can use the rising cost of energy and raw materials to dodge charges of profiteering when it comes to everyday price hikes and can hide behind higher overheads and differing tax regimes when asked why things cost so much more here than elsewhere.

The excuses dry up, however, when they are asked to explain why customers are left on hold for hours without problems being resolved; why site visits and appointments are missed without explanation; why consumers find contact details impossible to find; why letters of complaint are ignored and why surly shop assistants can't be bothered carrying out even the most cursory of checks to see if there are any forks so a hungry woman can eat her overpriced salad.

"The level of customer service offered in Ireland has declined significantly in recent years - there is no question about that," says Dermott Jewell of the Consumers' Association of Ireland (CAI). "Some companies have grown very big but they have not provided any back-up in terms of customer support."

He points the finger in particular at the telecom sector, where he says the level of customer service is "abysmal despite what they say". He is convinced that senior management in some companies "have no idea what is going on below them and the extent of the ill-feeling the public has for them". He says the CAI has repeatedly advised consumers to take steps to ensure complaints are heard and dealt with effectively. "We have told them to keep records, ask for the names of the people they're talking to and to write directly to managing directors. And they have done all this, but the depressing thing is that it has had very little effect when it comes to improving service."

Companies are, he says, loath to admit they have got it wrong and are completely inept when it comes to rectifying problems. "This ineptitude seems built into the ethos of many companies. They make many bold and awe-inspiring claims about their commitment to customer service in print, but they are only words," says Jewell.

His assessment of the future is bleak and he believes many people don't bother to complain "because they feel the stress is not worth it".

BUT JUST WHYis it that some companies get it so wrong when it comes to handling complaints? The simple answer is too many of them view an investment in the provision of an excellent - or even an adequate - customer support infrastructure as a cost which negatively impacts on their bottom line.

It is only the smart companies, however, which recognise that, in the long term, delivering good service makes sound commercial sense, as increased customer satisfaction leads to repeat business and, ultimately, increased profits.

The response times in dealing with complaints in some companies are so slow that it's almost as if they've taken a conscious decision to leave people waiting on hold or in queues, hoping they will give up, thus saving the company the task of having to resolve problems.

They will get negative criticism regularly but genuinely don't care as long as they're making money. One PR executive Pricewatch spoke to is accustomed to dealing with companies with a robust approach to customer complaints channelled through the media.

He admits they are "harder to deal with, certainly" and says there are times as a PR person when he "may not be able to deal with queries from the press to the satisfaction of the journalist, the public or even to myself, but you have to be sanguine about it. These companies have taken a business decision not to entertain complaints, however valid, and as clients they have the right to do that. It may not be textbook public relations but as long as they're profitable . . ."

So angry was journalist and blogger Damien Mulley about poor levels of customer care in certain arenas, that he set up the website iwillnothold.com. While be believes the level of customer service in the financial sector is "generally good, if not excellent" and it "differs wildly in retail", it is in the telecom sector where you hear "horror stories constantly".

"I think we need to know our rights," he says. He bemoans the fact that there is no single place consumers can go for advice dealing with every avenue of complaint. "We can fight back but we need to make the effort of finding out what our rights are and going to the right organisation to find out what those rights are. Most of the time these issues will get fixed or resolved; we do have enough consumer laws to help us but we just need to know how to exercise them to the fullest."