Good and bad customer service in SE1

Back to the original post. Borough High Street Post Office is only open till 12.30 on Saturdays. And the Post Office further up near London Bridge does not open at all on Saturdays! What's THAT all about?

Furthermore on Costcutter, the little Post Office in the back of the Great Dover Street branch is nearly always deserted, even on Saturday morning, and the staff are friendly and helpful.

Good service - the staff in the Post office on Westminster Bridge Road are lovely, as are the staff of Waterloo Health Centre in Lower Marsh. IN ASDA on OKR they are generally cheerful, polite and helpful while TESCO on the same road is the pits - the aforementioned lack of pleases and thank yous and refusal to make eye contact AND they overcharge if you don't rigorously go through the bill. The all night convenience store at the junction of St George's Road and Garden Row sucks - staff are rude and give the impression they don't actually WANT customers other than the street drinkers to whom they sell copious amounts of booze even when they are already wrecked. By contrast the convenience store at the other end of Garden Row has pleasant friendly staff and good attitude.

I rather like the kindly and helpful staff in the new Indigo Indian Restaurant in Stamford Street (good value and superb meals,everyone)

beverly wrote:

IN ASDA on OKR they are generally cheerful, polite and helpful while TESCO on the same road is the pits - the aforementioned lack of pleases and thank yous and refusal to make eye contact AND they overcharge if you don't rigorously go through the bill.

Re: ASDA - I did a mystery shopping assignment there once, therefore judging them in a formal capacity, and found the same thing. Very helpful, polite staff. Couldn't fault them at all.

Re: Tesco, I generally agree with your points there, too. However, I was there this afternoon, and got overcharged (I had a reduced item, and the yellow sticker wasn't over the barcode, so the item had gone through twice - once at full price and once reduced). The customer services lady was lovely and helpful, despite (judging by remarks made between her and the other customer services assistant) having had a bad day and a lot of bad customers.

On the general subject of good and bad service in SE1, I've always had impeccable service from The Island Cafe (Southwark Bridge Road/Flat Iron Square) and I agree with what others have said about Borough post office.

Bad service: the George is always exceptionally heavy-handed in getting rid of paying customers at closing time. And the Royal Festival Hall has a stupid policy of not waiving the 48-hours-in-advance cutoff for ticket exchanges even when all you're trying to do is upgrade to a better seat for the same event!

Courier companies - any. I regularly work at home to catch a scheduled delivery which doesn't arrive. A call into their call centre at day end gets the standard "the system says the courier attempted delivery and put a card through the door", to which I reply "I've been here all day and there is no card", to which they reply "I can only tell you what the system says" (i.e. computer says "no").

Recently Ticketmaster tried to deliver tickets via SecureMall. When I phoned Ticketmaster to find out where the tickets were I was informed that they'd been returned because the courier said "the property was derelict". I assured them that wasn't the case.....

I agree with Beverly about the service at the 24-hour shops at either end of Garden Row - except that they are both guilty of selling booze to the inebriated.

I often go out of my way to use local shops rather than supermarkets but sometimes wonder why I bother as they are often so unfriendly - for example of 24 hour supermarket on London Road - Its an achievement if they look at you when they give you your change! If they smiled, said hello, I might actually want to shop there rather than it being a place of last resort.

Interesting - the workers in that shop must have been to the same school of deportment and etiquette as the CostCutter staff at Dock Head, opposite Lazy.

It's funny how I always end up saying "please" and "thank you" at the till and subsequent hand over of my cash - I always have this nagging doubt that the staff should at least say those words too during the procedure.

On the general subject of good and bad service in SE1, I've always had impeccable service from The Island Cafe (Southwark Bridge Road/Flat Iron Square) and I agree with what others have said about Borough post office.

I've always liked The Island Cafe as a place, but unfortunately cannot drink either their tea or coffee in there. It's pretty awful.

Generally everyone is friendly but I have to warn you guys about Caffe Nero near M and S in Tooley Street.

Not only is the coffee sour and the worst in the area but the staff are provocatively rude.

By this I mean the common stuff like ignoring you and serving others when it is your turn, all because you have a young child who distracted you. I was prepared to forgive this - it happens.

But then there was a male barista who started yelling at me 'Hello HELLO!' when after placing my order, he had a question which I did not hear above the noise of the coffee machine. I was a little put off by this and his subsequent sarcastic sniggering.

When I asked him if my young son could use the loo, he scowled and flung his arm towards the back of the cafe.I assumed this was the toilet location. He then spent the rest of our visit stomping around and scowling at other customers.

I don't understand why this company would hire such obnoxious staff, especially as the area is so tourist heavy and locals like myself will just go elsewhere. I've worked in a shop - I know people can be rude to you but why go on the attack with customers?