General Chat

They've apologised and said the poppy will be back next year.

WOW!!!!!

Don't give a damn comes to mind.

I complained on their FB page simply because it's public. All complaints received the same type of response........'look...we've gone all out on FB, what are you complaining for?'

We are complaining because the paying members of GR have been treated like petulant infants spitting their dummies out. Demanding something GR found too difficult to supply.....the simple addition of a poppy to their logo.

It's not like they didn't know the date and had oh let's think....12 months to sort a string of coding out!

I totally understand that people are upset but I'm wondering what else people want. They have an apology and a promise that it will be back. What else do people want?

Merlin. :-|

Seems they should be called "Not So Bright Solid"

The way the high heid yins at GR have treated the paying members of this site shows nothing but arrogance and contempt - and their peely-wally attempt at an apology is not only an insult to the members - it is an insult to all who gave their lives or were injured in conflicts.

If I was a share holder of GR's parent company - I would be demanding an explanation from the CEO as to what the hell the high heid yins at GR thought they were playing at :-|

Hello Everyone.
Thought you would like to see email from GR.
Will be replying to it later in the day.

Dear Shaun


I‘d like to apologise for the unintended offence our omission to add a poppy emblem to our website has caused.

We concentrated on including poppies and paying tribute to our fallen heroes on our newsletter and our Facebook page this year and, quite honestly, had not anticipated the disappointment of not also including the poppy emblem on the Genes Reunited website would cause.

By the time that we realised our mistake, we were too late to make a technical release to our website. We can see by the reaction to this news on our community boards that some of our members have found this difficult to understand but I can assure you that it is the true position.
As a longstanding company, we greatly value the support of our members and it was clearly in our interest to resolve this issue so believe me when I say that if we could have added a poppy to the website late last week or even early this week, we would have done so.


Rest assured that this has made us look at this differently and you can be sure that poppy emblem will be returning to the Genes Reunited website in November next year.

I do hope that the length and detail of my personal response has demonstrated how seriously I have taken your email.

With kind regards


Nicky Doran
Head of Customer Services


~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shaun

So what it boils down to is the old political ploy of "Lessons have been learnt". :-)

Shaun - thank you for sharing that reply, that is certainly a more substantial apology than those we have received to date.

When you reply can I ask you to suggest to them - that they post this as an apology unreservedly, on the General Chat Board or Announcement Board.

Thanks Again :-)

so good of them

I am one who complained on fb several times I have not seen an apology or any reply from my posts unless today

so they think next year will be all right but srely if I amm not mistaken it will be 101 years then

sally w <3

Quite agree Sally.
We had a poppy last year & apparently will get one next year, but for the 100th anniversary.........nothing.!!!!
Virtually the whole country is acknowledging the anniversary one way or another, as are the people of every other country whose men fought to help win the conflict.
Too much trouble for Genes Reunited staff to show a bit of respect not just to the men & women who lost their lives, but to GR members most of whom clearly feel very strongly,

The issue here was really about ignoring us folk on here without Facebook accounts, obviously raised because of the poppy incident.

But no - haven't learned - here is my correspondance with them:

NIcky

Thank you - but the issue of the thread was really about you ignoring paying
members by NOT posting on your own site. There seems to be a policy of not
keeping paying members of you own website up to date.

It appears that those members who also have access to Facebook or Twitter
have to resort to those public sites where you then reply but you do not
update The Genes Reunited website - you leave us out in the cold.

With reference to the Poppy, I believe that if you had only posted an
explanation on Genes Reunited as soon as the issue was raised this furore
would not have been as angry as it has become.


*********

-----Original Message-----
From: Genes Reunited Support Team
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2014 11:59 AM
To: **********
Subject: RE: Members not on Facebook

Dear ********


I‘d like to apologise for the unintended offence our omission to add a poppy
emblem to our website has caused.

We concentrated on including poppies and paying tribute to our fallen heroes
on our newsletter and our Facebook page this year and, quite honestly, had
not anticipated the disappointment of not also including the poppy emblem on
the Genes Reunited website would cause.

By the time that we realised our mistake, we were too late to make a
technical release to our website. We can see by the reaction to this news on
our community boards that some of our members have found this difficult to
understand but I can assure you that it is the true position.
As a longstanding company, we greatly value the support of our members and
it was clearly in our interest to resolve this issue so believe me when I
say that if we could have added a poppy to the website late last week or
even early this week, we would have done so.


Rest assured that this has made us look at this differently and you can be
sure that poppy emblem will be returning to the Genes Reunited website in
November next year.

I do hope that the length and detail of my personal response has
demonstrated how seriously I have taken your email.

With kind regards


Nicky Doran
Head of Customer Services
Genes Reunited



===============================

Dear Genes

Please study the names and responses on this thread:
http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/general_chat/thread/1346525

It is important that you realise that so many of us are not users of
Facebook & Twitter. Some of the names listed are major posters on Genes
and we are being denied information and announcements made by yourselves
and we are all paying members.

You rely on us to help and answer questions on Family History but you
should NOT be relying on some paying members telling other paying members
what is going on. What you are doing is akin to telling passers by on the
street what is being done in the clubhouse and not understanding why the
club members are upset.

It is wrong that paying members should have to contact you via any free
website to find out what is going on or to make complaints.

Disgruntled and disenfranchised

*********

I got that exact same reply from Nicky this morning, in response to my email of complaint


............. so another computer generated common email, with just the name of the addressee changed


I wonder how heartfelt that apology really really is?



They have been receiving complaints on GR, on FB, AND by email for almost 2 weeks .......................... so the "too late" cry is all wrong in my eyes .......................



they didn't care about GR is what it comes down to.





Far far too often things have been announced on their FB page and not on this site.

My reply to email above.

Dear Nicky,

Thank you for your reply to this unthinkable behaviour by your employers BUT although you are Head of Customer Services I do not think you or the genes support team should be having the buck past to you; to apologies, when it’s the managers and directors place.

I’m sorry if I come over rude but it is not directed at you, I do not wish to know about Paying Tribute on Facebook because I subscribe to GR and for the 100th Remembrance Day there should have been a Poppy on the home page of this site and there’s no getting away from it.

The build up to this year’s 100th Remembrance of the Fallen has been in the making for most of the year with press releases and coverage from the national news; I assumed that GR was going to make it a special day for Genes Reunited Subscribers but they decided to ignore us and concentrated on covering it on Facebook although they had probably decided to do this months ago, we should have been told as we are paying members to this site.

The Managing Directors of this site who have made these decisions should put an apology either on general chat or announcements board instead of hiding in the back ground and expect you to do the apologising for them.

But sadly because of the attitude and blatant refusal by the senior management of this site to do the honourable thing by apologising to your members for not Honouring the Memory of The Fallen Men & Women on this 100th Remember ace Day I will not be renewing my subscription .

Thank you again for your correspondence.
Shaun

This is the response I have sent to Nicky .................... it being only mid-afternoon on Nov 11th here


Dear Nicky

The omission of the poppy on the GR site was definitely offensive to a lot of people .......... and I know of at least one person who has said they will not be renewing their subscription because of it.

It was unnecessary .......... and most certainly not understandable to most of us.

Why on earth would you have "concentrated on including poppies and paying tribute to our fallen heroes on our newsletter and our Facebook page this year"??

Those of us who pay subscriptions to post and help on your own main site, are the ones who have helped to make GR's name over the years, we are the ones that you cite as your "wonderful members" who are so helpful, we are the ones that you use at WDYTYA time in London .................. and you never "thought" that it would cause offense???

It is, of course, made much, much worse by the fact that this is the 100th year since the beginning of WW1 .................... and somebody in your company never "thought" that omitting the poppy on your subscription site would cause "offense"?? That "somebody" had time to work out all the details of several different postings and tributes on FB, but not on how to put one little poppy on your main site, when strangely, somebody else was able to do that in previous years??

I'm sorry, but that person should be fired!!!


As for the "I do hope that the length and detail of my personal response has demonstrated how seriously I have taken your email" closing paragraph ................ I know of at least 2 other people who have received the exact same email ........

........... so it is hardly a "personal response" to me is it?

Rest assured that your offence of omission this year will take a long, long time for me to forget ................ and I am sure that many, if not all, of the other members who have been so upset will be watching very carefully next year. If, that is, we are still members of GR, and if GR is still in existence as a separate site.


I do know that you are only the frontline person who is taking the flack for this ........... I am assuming that the "somebody" responsible for the terrible decision is somewhat higher up than you.

I do however hope that you are passing on all this information to those in management.



Sincerely

Sylvia xxxxxxxx
Member since April 2004

I thought I was complaining about the lack of information given to nonface book users.

Seems I was mistaken :-S

Thank you for taking the time to respond ******

You have raised some good points.

In hindsight, we should have done things differently and I have already put plans in place to ensure that a mistake of this kind does not occur next year.

Thank you for your continued support for Genes Reunited - it is very much appreciated

and this is the email I got this morning

I think they really did not appreciate just what a mistake they had made ............... though there is no excuse for making it.

----------
Thank you for your email Sylvia

I can see from this and your posts on our community boards, what an emotive subject this is for you.

As acknowledged in my previous email, we have made a real error of judgement in not adding a poppy emblem to the website.

I have been part of the Genes Reunited management team since the website was launched and I had truly not envisaged the reaction to us not adding a poppy emblem to our website.

We spent a lot of time writing and producing our Remembrance Day newsletter to honour our fallen heroes but should have also planned a website release to add the poppy emblem which has been used in previous years.

Sylvia, I know that you are a longstanding customer of ours and that You & I have previously corresponded on various issues. Please be assured that all of your feedback has been read by our whole management team and the seriousness of our mistake has been recognised.

If we could go back and do things differently, we would of course, have added a poppy to the website. As it stands, all I can do is assure you again that there will not be a repeat of this mistake next year.

That just leaves me to thank you again for your continued interest in and support for Genes Reunited Sylvia, it is very much appreciated.


With kind regards,


Nicky Doran
Head of Customer Services
Genes Reunited

----------


I'm satisfied .................... but I do wish we had not had to go through this experience!

And STILL they are leaving it up to some members to keep other members informed :-|

If only they had posted on announcements when they first realised they had made a faux pas then the lack of the poppy furore would surely have been smaller.

EAMIL FROM GR.
Dear Shaun,

I write to you not only as part of the Genes Reunited Management team, but also as someone who is passionate about Genes Reunited and has worked with our customers since the day that the website was launched.

As advised in my last email, I acknowledge that we completely misjudged the reaction to us not placing a poppy emblem on the actual website.

I am sure that you will have received our special Remembrance Day newsletter which was the avenue that we primarily used to honour our fallen heroes this year.

Shaun, please be assured that we have taken on board all of your comments.

At this stage, I can only apologise once more. If we could go back and do things differently, we would. As it stands, all I can do is assure you again that there will not be a repeat of this mistake next year.

I can see that you are a longstanding member of Genes Reunited. I would hate to think that you had decided not to continue with our services after March next year as a result of this and hope that you will reconsider nearer the time.

With kind regards,


Nicky Doran
Head of Customer Services
Genes Reunited

My reply.

Dear Nicky,

I just cannot understand or except that someone thought it a good idea to commemorate the 100th Remembrance Day more on Facebook and on this family history site where you get an income from selling Military records, displaying a Poppy on the home page is PRIORITY for a site like this.

I accept your apology and I’m sorry that you have had to deal with all the outcry, being Head of Customer Services instead of your employers crawling out of the woodwork and doing the right thing by making an apology on General Chat, which all GR subscribers would like to see and would appreciate.

I stand by my decision and will not be renewing my Platinum Subscription which I have had for the last 4 years in protest of the lack of respect shown by not displaying a Poppy. I would like to think that other members to this site will support me in this decision and join me.

Thank you again Nicky for taking the time for your emails and apologising for GR.

Kind Regards
Shaun

I don't accept their apology.
Far too much of this - oh they're older, no need to bother.
I'm a member of FB, have looked at GR's FB page - mind you it took effort to find the 'current' FB page - seems earlier ones have been closed, and, quite frankly don't want to join.

So, it seems we paying members are 'second class'.
As has been said, it is PAYING GR members who answer queries and keep this site going - and GR can't be bothered to acknowledge 100 years since the start of WWI on this site.

Take a VRQ (guess what that means to some) in customer service GR. Even that would increase your customer service skills.