Ancestry

[Jenny M Benson]

There are 2 ways for a company to handle complaints: one is to ask their
customers if they have any and then take appropriate action. The other,
which is the one adopted by Ancestry, is to cause loads of them but then
make it almost impossible to receive any of them.

For some time now several things about the Ancestry website have
seriously niggled me (1) and when they invited me to take a survey I
thought it would be a good chance to air my thoughts. Question: "Would
I recommend Ancestry?" End of survey!

Then just recently I found that a page was missing from the 1861 Census
and I wanted to inform them of this. Was their a quick and easy way of
reporting this (as there is on FMP)? of course not! After trawling the
site in vain I resorted to making my complaint to a robot. The robot
answered a question I hadn't asked. I was then told I could "chat" to a
real person ... but I was told I was 8th in a queue and I was past
caring so I abandoned.

Why can't I quickly and easily send an e-mail which someone with some
authority can read and act upon? - even if the only action is to say
"we're not going to change that."

(1) My most pressing complaints:

(a) The impossibility of e-mailing them.
(b) The difficulty in informing them of missing items.
(c) I can't search the 1861 Census by reference (piece, folio, page.)
d) I can't search the 1891 Census by reference to a specific page.
(e) The Quick Links feature is really useful and I've used it a lot, but
now they are going to remove it.
(f) When I enter someone's name in a Search I do not want ALL their
details, including the names of their wife and 12 children automatically
populating the entire page. No one in their right mind would ever want
to search like that.
(g) I am subscribed to Ancestry.co.uk. Why do they keep sending me
links to Ancestry.com?

[MB]

Post by Jenny M Benson
There are 2 ways for a company to handle complaints: one is to ask their
customers if they have any and then take appropriate action.

I have found that most companies and organisations appear to scan any
communications for keywords and if they recognise any keyword, they send
out a proforma reply. You usually have persist before anyone actually
reads it and responds properly.

But you have to remember the number of letters, calls, EMails that many
receive. There are perennial complains about complaints to the BBC
(never ITV, CH4 etc who seem to just ignore most complaints). But if
they had staff dealing personally with every complaint then there would
be no one left to actually make any programmes.

I bet they have received hundreds of EMails and calls this morning about
last night's Happy Valley.

[Ian Goddard]

Post by Jenny M Benson
There are 2 ways for a company to handle complaints: one is to ask their
customers if they have any and then take appropriate action.  The other,
which is the one adopted by Ancestry, is to cause loads of them but then
make it almost impossible to receive any of them.
For some time now several things about the Ancestry website have
seriously niggled me (1) and when they invited me to take a survey I
thought it would be a good chance to air my thoughts.  Question: "Would
I recommend Ancestry?"  End of survey!
Then just recently I found that a page was missing from the 1861 Census
and I wanted to inform them of this.  Was their a quick and easy way of
reporting this (as there is on FMP)?  of course not!  After trawling the
site in vain I resorted to making my complaint to a robot.  The robot
answered a question I hadn't asked.  I was then told I could "chat" to a
real person ... but I was told I was 8th in a queue and I was past
caring so I abandoned.
Why can't I quickly and easily send an e-mail which someone with some
authority can read and act upon? - even if the only action is to say
"we're not going to change that."
(a) The impossibility of e-mailing them.
(b) The difficulty in informing them of missing items.
(c) I can't search the 1861 Census by reference (piece, folio, page.)
d) I can't search the 1891 Census by reference to a specific page.
(e) The Quick Links feature is really useful and I've used it a lot, but
now they are going to remove it.
(f) When I enter someone's name in a Search I do not want ALL their
details, including the names of their wife and 12 children automatically
populating the entire page.  No one in their right mind would ever want
to search like that.
(g) I am subscribed to Ancestry.co.uk.  Why do they keep sending me
links to Ancestry.com?

The most effective way to complain to any big organisation these days is
to call them out on (anti-)social media. Those of us who eschew such
things seem to be disenfranchised.

[MB]

Post by Ian Goddard
The most effective way to complain to any big organisation these days is
to call them out on (anti-)social media. Those of us who eschew such
things seem to be disenfranchised.

Twitter can be effective because it is public.

[Geoff]

Post by Jenny M Benson
There are 2 ways for a company to handle complaints: one is to ask
their customers if they have any and then take appropriate action.
The other, which is the one adopted by Ancestry, is to cause loads of
them but then make it almost impossible to receive any of them.
For some time now several things about the Ancestry website have
seriously niggled me (1) and when they invited me to take a survey I
"Would I recommend Ancestry?" End of survey!
Then just recently I found that a page was missing from the 1861
Census and I wanted to inform them of this. Was their a quick and
easy way of reporting this (as there is on FMP)? of course not!
After trawling the site in vain I resorted to making my complaint to
a robot. The robot answered a question I hadn't asked. I was then
told I could "chat" to a real person ... but I was told I was 8th in
a queue and I was past caring so I abandoned.
Why can't I quickly and easily send an e-mail which someone with some
authority can read and act upon? - even if the only action is to say
"we're not going to change that."
(a) The impossibility of e-mailing them.
(b) The difficulty in informing them of missing items.
(c) I can't search the 1861 Census by reference (piece, folio, page.)
d) I can't search the 1891 Census by reference to a specific page.
(e) The Quick Links feature is really useful and I've used it a lot,
but now they are going to remove it. (f) When I enter someone's name
in a Search I do not want ALL their details, including the names of
their wife and 12 children automatically populating the entire page.
No one in their right mind would ever want to search like that. (g)
I am subscribed to Ancestry.co.uk. Why do they keep sending me links
to Ancestry.com?