TOTAL Customer Care

I fill up 60 litres a week (my car does over 55mpg). Currently it’s costing around £80 each fill up.

Recently the price has been going up each week, and this is putting an extra few quid on each weekly fill up… Not good!

Last week I went to fill my car up with diesel and was happy to see the price on the billboard at the entrance hadn’t gone up since the previous week. Sure it was 136.9p per litre, but it hadn’t gone up in a week!!! Woo hoo!

I got to the pump, got out, opened my cars filler cap, picked up the nozzle and noticed the price was 137.9p per litre. Different to the board by 1p… Sure, just 1p (60p more to fill my car), but annoying that the price HAD actually gone up this week, AND was different to advertised at the entrance.

Yeah, probably an oversight during a price change, although the cynical side of me did think it was a cunning way to get customers in, only to find the fuel was 1p more…. but hey, by the time you’re at the pump you’re not likely to say “sod it” and go to another gas station….

Anyway, I mentioned it to the cashier, who apologised – so score 1 on customer service. A bit later I looked online and sent TOTAL an email because that price board was misleading, even if the cause was completely innocent.

I might sound a bit “Victor Meldrew-esque” but I believe that if people aren’t going to do anything about a problem, then they shouldn’t moan about things.

One polite email later and I received an apologetic letter and a £5.00 gift voucher from TOTAL. Score 2 to customer services.

So there you go. It goes to show that a polite email does work better than just mindlessly complaining to anyone in earshot but not actually doing anything about the problem.

£5.00 eh! That’s 500 times more money than the budget knocked of a litre of fuel… Nice one TOTAL.