Holgate’s online customer service troubles ring true for Team Global Express customers

Christine Holgate and an image from Iro’s current range online.

Team Global Express CEO Christine Holgate has had it up to HERE with crap customer service.

She’s been trying for weeks to get hold of someone to talk to at edgy Parisian clothing brand Iro, purveyors of “coolness, sophistication and modernity”, or so they boast of themselves on the website.

Holgate was up late on Tuesday night going at them on LinkedIn, venting her fury at what she obviously perceives as some shabby treatment. Why LinkedIn? Avenue of last resort, sadly — her calls to the Iro helpline were going unanswered and her emails were lining the company spam basket.

Don’t they know who she is?!

“I am experiencing the most dreadful customer service from Iro,” Holgate wrote in desperation. “Please can you help. I have tried to make contact over 10 different ways, but no one follows up. Your customer phone line is not operational. No one follows up to emails or click to chat. Please can you help.”

Sounds dire, doesn’t it? Or does it sound familiar?

Team Global Express chief executive Christine Holgate actually received some help in the end. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

There are similarly horrible reviews of TGE that customers keep posting on product review websites. Of the 759 reviews available on one such service, a whopping 96 per cent were wholly negative of TGE, giving the parcel delivery brand just 1.2 stars out of a possible five.

“This is the worst company to ship things through,” wrote Kerry M. of Greater Melbourne. “No tracking, no info, and no one to talk to.”

A similar experience for Carolyn Stephens of North Queensland. “You can’t talk to any living person or persons. Still waiting for my packages for a couple of weeks after the estimate (sic) delivery time,” she said.

And KRod of Melbourne, who was most damning. “Would give 0 stars if possible. Absolutely appalling, impossible to get through via phone or chat.”

Small comfort knowing TGE’s boss now feels their pain. Well, not anymore. Holgate actually received some help in the end, her LinkedIn post managing to collar someone for attention. “They have replied to her query and are helping her to resolve it,” a spokeswoman said.

Rio’s radical approach to transparency

There’s radical transparency, and then there’s Rio Tinto. How else to explain its decision to derail its own investor day presentations by boosting the campaign of a critical shareholder?

UK hedge fund Palliser Capital clearly thinks it is on a winner in its push to force Rio to give up its dual-listed structure, launching a classic activist ambush on Wednesday aimed squarely at capturing headlines ahead of the mining giant’s London investor day presentations.

Palliser sent out a press release at the same time as sending a letter to Rio’s board, advertising a campaign to “Unify Rio” and outlining its case for the company to join BHP in moving the company’s headquarters (and primary listing) to Australia.

Shareholders would be $US50bn better off if had Rio ditched London years ago, the Palliser argument says, and Rio’s board would be fools to ignore the “irrefutable benefits of unification”.

Rio Tinto CEO Jakob Stausholm has spent the last three years promising greater transparency from the mining giant. Picture: John Feder/The Australian.

We know this because Rio told us about it.

Little did Palliser know, when launching Wednesday’s ambush, Rio would be happy to join the fun. Shortly after Palliser’s media release hit the inbox of journalists, it was joined by a missive from Rio.

Which somehow, hilariously, sent out the activist fund manager’s press release under its own letterhead. Rio also hosted the Palliser release — unchanged — on its own website. It was, sadly, quickly torn down.

Rio boss Jakob Stausholm has spent the last three years promising greater transparency from the mining giant. Sending out a critic’s message as his own surely sets a bar few will be brave enough to follow.

Bravo, we say.

Tough week for corporate Australia

Not so easy to establish who’s running down-and-out pub operator Australian Venue Co., which made a right ass of itself over the weekend when a spokeswoman claimed its venues wouldn’t be celebrating Australia Day.

Online mobs predictably moved to hound the AVC executive team, led by CEO Paul Waterson, and so the company took down its management chart. Waterson’s LinkedIn page has also been removed, so he’s in witness protection.

Australian Venue Co’s Paul Waterson seems to have entered witness protection. Picture: Supplied

Perhaps the teachable moment here is pub groups thriving on poker machine revenue, as AVC does, shouldn’t be moralising at the community on how to celebrate Australia Day.

AVC walked back its decision by Monday, but it was all just an opener for a cascade of incomprehensible disasters which spread across corporate Australia this week.

Enter Commonwealth Bank, which angered everyone with an announcement that it planned to slug customers $3 for cash withdrawals made from a bank branch or over a telephone.

The policy has since been “paused” as a result of the backlash which followed, CBA’s retail boss Angus Sullivan — $1000 richer after betting on a Trump victory in the U.S. elections — denying this was a “backflip” (which it clearly was). He said the bank had merely stuffed up the “communication”.

Couple that with Woolworths bearing empty shelves across the east coast over union strike action, and CEO Amanda Bardwell, hiding with Waterson in the same WitSec program, popping up briefly on a press release to apologise for the palaver late on Wednesday afternoon, and you just know Coles is making an absolute killing out of this!

And, just as Roy Morgan released a snapshot of the country’s most distrusted brands. The Fresh Food People jumped three spots to claim second place, behind Optus, with Coles sneaking into third.