Breville UK fail the customer service test

Something I have found of UK based companies recently is an attitude towards customers that borders on contempt.

I’ve had lies and mistruths from ThreeUK, outstandingly poor service from TescoDigital, regionalised printer ink from HP and now Breville steps up to the proverbial (hot) plate with another region based excuse for lousy service.

A few years back we bought what was at the time a top-of-range Breville 800ES   espresso machine.  It’s a beast of a machine which cost us a lot of New Zealand dollars for a home (non-commercial) machine and until today has served without so much as a hiccup. 

But today the funny wee double-skinned pressurised basket (the bit that hold the coffee grounds) finally gave up.  I’ve cleaned it meticulously since new keeping the myriad of tiny holes clean and clear but flow the coffee will no more. 

A quick read around the net and it looks like I need a new basket.

No problems Breville is a BIG company with offices just about everywhere so I dropped them an email asking where and how I could purchase a replacement.  I know Breville sells them from all that reading.

The response, whilst prompt, left me cold and seething…

Aside from the appalling lack of punctuation & capitalisation it appears that Breville UK find themselves completely unable to apply any human aspect or creative thinking into retaining my long standing loyalty to their products.

A straight forward “we don’t sell it in the UK so tough” is NOT customer service – in fact it’s basically telling me that as I was not their customer they have no service for me.

A simple more human response would have been acceptable, even a “why don’t we give Breville USA or Breville Aus a quick call and see if we can source one” or a “sorry we don’t stock these in the UK but you could try…”

Not hard really.

So now I start searching for third party baskets – Saeco apparently have one that should fit.

Will I buy another Breville coffee machine – not likely.