Waterstone's

I've phoned the Picadilly store from Ireland on several occasions, and have found the young lady manageress and the others who answered my other calls to be courteous and helpful. Waterstone's staff have a difficult job at the best of times but they respond to different dialects, accents and cultures with a comforting ease.

Further to the occasional remarks concerning this store's seeming inability to answer their phones within a reasonable amount of time, I thought I'd register here and tell the world that I am currently 24 minutes into my attempt to discover whether they have the book I'm after. Two calls timed out (after 7 minutes), one was poorly connected, and two further calls to the switchboard to try and get help. They're phoning me back... Oh - excuse me.

Aaaah, they haven't got it. Bugger.

It is a great bookshop though. (Rating is for phone answering skills.)

It's not surprising the phone was not answered at 9.20am (FAO frustrated and frustrated2)... central London is barely open at all at this early hour (most shops open between 10 and 11am). Staff would be attending to the customers that are in store (priority) and perhaps dealing with other phone queries - this applies throughout the day too. The staff are dedicated, very helpful and polite, and when not seeing to customers in store, will happily answer the phone.

An absolutely massive store, with a really nice Costa's hidden away downstairs. Perfect place to go to get out of the rain!

I was in desperate need of a book for my assignment. Thanks to Waterstones I got hold of it, as they had it in stock. I had called 6 libraries and 5 bookshops which had said that they would only have it in in the next 6 days (too late for my purposes).

For Europe's largest bookstore one would expect someone to answer the phone at 9.20 am.

I have just phoned up and found out in less than 5 minutes that they have the book I wanted. Excellent. I look forward to going there later on today.

No reply after 5 minutes on the phone. Unable to tell via the website if the book I wanted was in stock.

Just called them to see if they stocked a certain book. When no one answered the line to the department I wanted, the person I spoke to offered to walk up there to check. His colleague then called me straight back. Impressive service... And a very nice bar to meet in too, with a view to the London Eye.

Great place. Great staff. One of the staff (I think his name was Angelo) spent almost a full ten minutes looking around the shop for a book I wanted as a birthday gift. Highly recommended!

A great place to find and read books, and meet in the cafes and bars. A haven in central London.

Too much Da Vinci Code, too much pulp fiction in the '3 for 2'.

Nice staff took a picture of me with Michael Crichton. Lovely place!

Great choice, nice bar with views at the top, a bit soul-less but you can't beat it for the number of books. Proud to have this store in London.

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