Poor Customer Service is a Symptom

In a previous post I touched upon the issue of unreasonable customer demands and behaviours. Today we’ll discuss Customer Service Desks and how they manage to irritate me.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I’ve been (and in many ways still am) on the receiving end of the phone call/email, so I am well aware of the following:

1. how busy the job is
2. how long it actually takes to get things resolved and why
3. how robust and restrictive certain company policies and scripts can be
4. how rude, misinformed and unrealistic some customers can be
5. how long and tiring the shifts are and how low the pay can be
6. that as far as management is concerned, quantity is often preferred to quality in terms of productivity
7. that some things are out of our control i.e. third party vendors, suppliers, regulatory agencies, couriers, etc.

Having said that, let me tell you what I have zero tolerance for:

1. incompetence
2. indifference
3. robotic replies
4. illusions of grandeur
5. outright buffoonery

Unfortunately, I am met with these way too often in both the public and private sector. The bigger the company, the worse it gets – mo’ people, mo’ problems.

X Mobile Company: In 2017, their broadband department got my name wrong, although I have been their mobile customer for 7 years; name can’t be updated unless I close my account and open a new one; When I moved house, 2 months of absolute nonsense ensued during which I have no broadband at home (but am of course paying for it), and when after 6 calls with 6 different people who never wrote anything down the issue was finally “rectified”, the existing order got cancelled and a new one restarted the whole process, pushing any installation/activation date further into the future every time; 10/10 “would” recommend….

X Telecoms Company: Quote: “Your business Fibre Broadband and new monthly business call plan will go live on X date. It will happen automatically so you don’t need an engineer and there will be no interruption to your service.” Date X arrives – no phone, no broadband, no engineer for THREE days. When the bill arrives there is a £245 charge for an engineer callout that was their fault. You call to dispute it, they agree on a refund but end up adding it as another charge. You call again; four months later the account is finally credited the £500 owed.

X Government Agency: you call to make a payment on behalf of the company, but they tell you that you are not authorised to discuss the account on their records. You explain you are only calling to make a payment and they confirm that a payment will be ok. You tell them you will be paying with the company debit card (which is in your name). They say that is not allowed because they cannot verify you have authority to use said card with your name on it. They also suggest that if you were to use your personal debit card then you would obviously be the authorised person and it would be fine to process the payment. You ask “who in their right mind calls X Government Agency to make a payment on behalf of a company that does not belong to them from their personal bank account?” they say it’s just the rules.

X Courier: you pay good money for next day delivery by 1:00 pm, they take that as general preference only. You cannot contact the courier; the retailer can’t either; you end up going in store last minute before closing time, rushing after work to get the item you need because only 3 London stores actually have the item in stock (2 of them more than an hour away). They deliver your item 2 days later and the driver looks at you as if you murdered his childhood pet when you refuse the delivery stating you no longer require it because it’s too late.

X Card Processing company: you accidentally overcharge a customer and immediately issue a refund on their debit card. Card processor tell you refunds can take up to 10 days to process, you say that is too long, you ask them to cancel the card refund because you will issue it by bank transfer. Bank gets the work done. Card processor doesn’t simply cancel the transaction, they reverse it so the money leaves the customer account again. You call and argue; they say you should only issue card refunds because it otherwise creates confusion. You tell them their processes disregard yours or your customers’ convenience, and ask them not to touch anything else. You call the bank again.

X Bank: They flag up the call as suspicious activity as same transfer happens twice in 48 hours. They freeze the company account and multiple scheduled payments without notifying you or any of the authorized signatories. It takes a Friday night and a Saturday morning to unlock it and 4 different letters and phone conversations with 3 different people to get the payments processed and a complaint recorded. Bank responds with – “not clear what the problem was. If you would like to discuss this further please contact us again.”

X Dental Regulator: one of your employees would like to add a qualification to their already existing record. They are told they need a certificate of good standing from the dental council in their home country where they have not lived or worked in over 5 years. They tell you it has to be dated within the last 3 months. You say that it makes no sense, as the dental council of the home country has had zero dealings with your employee for the past 5 years. They respond with ‘this is our procedure, if you disagree that’s just your opinion, and if you keep asking for an explanation you will just be going in circles.’

X Online supplier: you called to place an order because their online store is not working; they ask you for the catalogue numbers. You repeat that their website is down and so you have no access to their catalogue.  They sigh with annoyance, the order is placed, and when you wish them a good day, they hang up the phone without saying anything back.

The saga continues on a weekly basis, but I will stop here.

Do you see a pattern? It’s a universal customer service problem and it frustrates me to no end. With every interaction of this nature, the following things become painfully clear:

• Important information doesn’t get sent out,
• you are often given wrong or incomplete information,
•  the people you speak to don’t write down what you said,
• when they do, no one else bothers reading it,
• separate customer service teams don’t communicate with each other effectively,
• a lot of people don’t have a clue as to what they are doing due to poor training or poor management
• a lot of people don’t give a damn about what they are doing – no cure for that one!
• Too often, the solution-oriented thought process is brought down to a minimum and people hide behind the cliches of “it’s company policy” and “that’s our standard procedure”.

So what does that say about the respective companies? It means that the recruitment processes and/or employee training programmes are below acceptable standard. It creates the impression that managers don’t care and that the company would rather cost it’s customers time, stress and money than invest in training employees properly and designing efficient policies.

When it comes to customer services, you can’t separate the individual from the organisation. An employee’s personal skills and approach to the customers goes hand in had with the support network provided by management and company policy. When either is lacking, what ends up filling the gaps is disappointment.