Disappointing Addison Lee minicab experience

The background of my Addison Lee minicab complaint

I think it mostly boils down to me being intolerant when customer service is horrible. In this particular case, I ordered a special car for a surprise birthday treat for Troy. Despite the Addison Lee website clearly stating that a premier car was either a Mercedes E Class, or a BMW 5 Series, a giant people mover came instead. When I pointed out this discrepency to Addison Lee's minicab customer service department, instead of simply apologising for a mistake, they argued with me. When I no longer wanted to argue with them on the phone, I decided to write a letter outlining my point on paper - clearly no one can argue with my rational case! I sent the letter to the Customer Service manager and the CEO of Addison Lee. My response arrived back in the post and it's simply amazing to me how Addison Lee just doesn't get it. Wow. I hope they're happy, because for the sake of a £40 make-good to a loyal customer, they've now lost me forever as a customer. Hopefully they'll lose you, too. (Update December 2009- we've now found a great replacement and have been happy the five time we've used them so far - nicer cars, inexpensive and reliable. Check out London Heathrow Cars).

My Addison Lee written letter of complaint

Sarah Elliot
cc: Daryl Foster
Addison Lee
35-37 William Road
London NW1 3ER

November 22, 2009

Dear Ms. Elliot:

This is regarding booking 871xxx on Saturday November 14, for a transfer from my home to the Soho Hotel in London. I already sent an email to Customer Relations, and spoke with Sheila Chudasama on the phone, who advised me to send a letter in the post since she was unwilling to address my complaint.

I should start by saying that I’ve used Addison Lee exclusively for my personal transport needs since moving to London 3.5 years ago. The initial recommendation came from a co-worker and I have certainly passed on my own personal recommendation to many other friends since. This is my first negative experience with your company, but the experience in trying to have my complaint taken seriously has driven me to fury.

My initial complaint was simple – I ordered an “Addison Lee Premier” car for my husband’s surprise birthday present (a night at the Soho Hotel). Your website quite clearly specifies this as “A Mercedes-Benz E-Class or BMW 5 series chauffeured by our most experienced and professional drivers.” What arrived for our transport was neither of these cars, but a large people mover. Yes, it was a Mercedes by make, but so are the rubbish collection trucks in my neighbourhood.

I include the screen shot from your order screen below where it very clearly tells the customer which of two cars they should expect with this booking – no indication that you may send something completely different without calling me to ask if that’s okay.

Needless to say, I was very embarrassed when the people mover arrived, and yet due to time constraints of a show we had tickets for, I didn’t have the luxury of refusing the vehicle when it arrived and waiting indefinitely for the correct car. When we returned home on Sunday, I emailed Customer Relations with my complaint and fully expected to receive a heart-felt apology for my embarrassment and either a goodwill gesture of waiving the fee, or at least a discount for a future booking.

Instead, what I received after several days was an invite to call into the office, and then on the phone, a line of corporate justifications on how this experience was somehow my fault. Not only was a refund or discount never offered, I never even received an apology. What I did receive from Ms. Chudasama was an argument that Addison Lee considers the large Mercedes Van part of your VIP fleet and therefore completely acceptable to send when someone books an E-class or 5-series premier car. I pointed out the explicit and clear statement on your website of the two models that are promised when ordering a premier car, and then your customer service agent’s argument changed to tell me that you don’t mention the large van on the website because only a few exist in the fleet and therefore it’s not worth calling out. In addition, it was my responsibility to be fully aware of all models of the Mercedes brand and to have noticed in the text message prior to arrival that the model being sent was a large vehicle. Apologies, but I don’t spend my time memorising fleet vehicle models. I do, however, expect that when I book a premier car with an explicit list of cars in that category, that one of them arrives.

As you no doubt can tell by this point, my initial complaint could have been addressed quite easily with a simple apology. Mistakes happen. I wanted my complaint to be validated, and an apology to be made for the embarrassing way an otherwise nice birthday surprise was supposed to have unfolded. Instead, I find myself on the defensive and with an argument and line of reasoning from Addison Lee that doesn’t even make sense to me. I am furious that I – the customer – am being asked to spend part of my Sunday afternoon writing a letter to post to you. I use Addison Lee for convenience and reliability and this experience has made me lose complete faith in both qualities of your company.

Apologies for the lengthy letter. In reality, this is very simple, although I felt it important to provide you the context and background. I ordered a transport for a special occasion from an explicit list of cars on your website; something else arrived; your customer service department refuses to recognize this disconnect as important to me. Please make this right.

I want to provide Addison Lee with an opportunity to address this once more before deciding on any further action. With the explanation I currently have in hand from Customer Relations, I consider your website to be deliberately misleading to the consumer and to be such with your full knowledge. I can’t imagine this is actually the experience you want your loyal customers to have.

I’m looking forward to your response.

The Addison Lee response

I will have to scan in the full letter, but until I can do that, the summary of the letter is "Addison Lee doesn't care about its customers who have a problem." Some of the more fun quotes in the written response from Sarah include:

• Misspelling of my name - the first word in the entire letter (doesn't inspire lots of confidence)
• Addison Lee is primarily a corporate account servicing company and you aren't a corporate account holder and we do 18000 transfers a day (all interesting but so what?)
• We make no money from your ad-hoc use of our minicab service, all our money is made from our corporate accounts (yeah? so I should expect lower service because of that? How is that possibly relevant to my complaint?)
• Our terms and conditions buried somewhere on the website state that what you order and pay for is only representative, we can actually send any old piece of junk to pick you up that we want. You agreed to those terms automatically when you booked the minicab online. (I love to hear complaints addressed not based on the validity of the issue but argued from a legal perspective as if whether they could legally prove what they did was okay. Great customer service.)
• We consider certain vans and other large vehicles to be in our premier fleet, so we simply substitute it at will and without asking the customer who booked an executive car. We don't worry about pesky things like what guarantees our website makes. You should actually have been charged more since the van we sent you is more expensive if you had ordered it. (Yeah, but I didn't order it and that's my whole problem.)
• Did we mention that you're not a corporate customer so you really are more of an inconveinence to our minicab company than you're worth?
• We reviewed your complaint and listened to the phone call you made to the Addison Lee customer service representative. She answered your questions and wasn't rude, so why are you still complaining? (Right.. because my written complaint had nothing to do with rudeness or lack of answers - it had to do with Addison Lee refusing to make good a simple promise with a customer.)

So at this point, the £40 isn't worth me pursuing further with them directly since Addison Lee clearly cares about something other my my low-profit use of its minicab service. I'm considering whether to dispute the charge on my credit card, make a formal complaint with The Office of Fair Trading, or a consumer group like Which. It still seems quite clear and simple to me - I ordered one thing on the website explicitly called out and a second thing arrived. But Addison Lee seems to be quite content to point me to what's important to them, the profit I'm not making for them, how they're not rude (good for you! that's really an accomplishment!) and missing the point that I was (yes, that was purposely in the past tense) the customer with a basic complaint of bait-and-switch. Oh well. Maybe this experience will save someone else the trouble that Addison Lee has put me through. Now off to find a new and more appreciative minicab company in London.