I’m determined to give Pets At Home my money. They have a product that we buy a lot of. They have a good price for volume purchases. So it would be stupid (despite the highly advanced level of their previous shiteness) to pass up on a bargain, yes?
Well yes. But I’m not stupid. Unlike the technical department of Pets At Home which seems to be entirely composed of morons, people who don’t understand the value of retaining customers, and folk who seem incapable of comprehending good user experience. The people employed by Pets At Home IT (or maybe they’re not, perhaps they’ve outsourced it all to someone else?) are precisely the kind of people I wouldn’t not have recruited in my thirty years in the field of technical IT.
What’s got me going this time?
Let’s skip back to their product that we buy large quantities of. In order to unlock the discount, we are required to place an “easy repeat” order. This commits the purchaser to buying a certain quantity of product on a certain regular frequency.
Sidebar: There is an administrative problem with the “easy repeat” order system. If you need to go on to the Pets At Home to discuss, edit, or alter your order, the website – logically – asks for the order number. The administrative problem is that the “easy repeat” order number begins with a ‘3’, but the website doesn’t recognise an order number that begins with a ‘3’. This isn’t rocket science, folks. Use your common sense, eh?
Right, back to their latest cockup.
I got an email today from Pets At Home about my “easy repeat” order. It said (and I quote):
“Your current easy-repeat plan has been cancelled. Please follow the steps below.
Following a recent upgrade to our website and payment security processes, we’ve been unable to transfer across the existing payment and plan details for your easy-repeat plan. Unfortunately, this means that your easy-repeat plan has been cancelled, and you’ll need to sign up again to ensure you continue to receive orders in the future.”
Well, that’s stunning. Well done, Pets At Home, you are redefining incompetence, and doing so at a stunning rate.
Don’t you want my money?