Keep the customer satisfied (or not)
I've had a couple of experiences over the last week or so which served to demonstrate the importance companies attach to customer service these days. Firstly I ordered a gig ticket for something to do whilst I'm in New York later this month (New York? Why yes! I might even blog about it...). The package was duly Fed-Ex'd across the Atlantic and delivered to my home address, where of course it didn't get delivered because I was at work. After phoning up and being offered the chance to collect the package from their depot on some bleak industrial estate in darkest Enfield (no thanks), they agreed to deliver it to me at work. Which to be fair to them, they eventually did. Albeit at least three days after the originally specified day. Which was a Friday, with a window of 8:30am-5pm, for which I attempted to get into work early, but the bus was late, and I got in late, and stayed in the office until 5 even though everyone else left early for a colleague's leaving drinks, and when the package did turn up the next Wednesday the mail room signed for it anyway, so I needn't have bothered panicking. Gaaaah.
At around the same time, the ancient washing machine in my flat finally gave up the ghost. A new machine was ordered, the delivery of which was scheduled for between 1pm and 6pm that Saturday. They came, they saw the old machine, they left without uninstalling it, leaving a new machine sitting uselessly in my living room (despite my landlady having paid to have the old one taken away). It took her Mr Fixit friend to come around and complete the changeover, who basically confirmed my suspicions that the delivery man was a lazy bastard who couldn't be arsed to do the job he'd been paid for.
These are two isolated incidents, but I could reel off a very long list of bad customer service experiences I've suffered over the years, as I'm sure anyone reading this could (hello btw). The sad truth is that individual customers have become the lowest priority for every company. Presumably there was a clandestine, competition law-defying meeting at some point where all the big players agreed to provide the same shitty levels of service, thereby ensuring that no customer would swich to a competitor purely because they might get treated better elsewhere, because they won't be. Voila - cut the costs, discourage all contact by post or email, employ jobbing drones to man the phones, they don't even have to be from this country or speak good English, and every shareholder is that much happier. Who gives a monkey's if the customers don't respect us anymore? They'll still give us their money.
And because larger chain stores are taking all the trade from traditional local businesses, you get similarly poor levels of service from deliverymen who are given tight schedules and presumably fairly low pay, and therefore don't really give a shit about completing simple jobs such as uninstalling a washing machine. It's left to the independent tradesmen like my landlady's friend Robin to provide any sort of personalised service.
My problem is that I can't remember what things were like in the old days. It's barely conceivable, but maybe companies had dedicated customer service agents who were fully trained in their field and perhaps even sat with their colleagues, with nary a premium rate number or warehouse full of unmotivated phone monkeys in sight. Apparently in Japan they hold no truck with delivery windows of "all morning" or "all afternoon", they give you a 20-minute window and are never late. There's no reason this model couldn't be adopted here, except for the obvious monetary one. So thanks to companies everywhere, we'll continue hurtling towards our ultimate goal of a cold, impersonal society where everyone is programmed to provide as little help and goodwill as possible. Thanks for reading - now fuck off :-)
At around the same time, the ancient washing machine in my flat finally gave up the ghost. A new machine was ordered, the delivery of which was scheduled for between 1pm and 6pm that Saturday. They came, they saw the old machine, they left without uninstalling it, leaving a new machine sitting uselessly in my living room (despite my landlady having paid to have the old one taken away). It took her Mr Fixit friend to come around and complete the changeover, who basically confirmed my suspicions that the delivery man was a lazy bastard who couldn't be arsed to do the job he'd been paid for.
These are two isolated incidents, but I could reel off a very long list of bad customer service experiences I've suffered over the years, as I'm sure anyone reading this could (hello btw). The sad truth is that individual customers have become the lowest priority for every company. Presumably there was a clandestine, competition law-defying meeting at some point where all the big players agreed to provide the same shitty levels of service, thereby ensuring that no customer would swich to a competitor purely because they might get treated better elsewhere, because they won't be. Voila - cut the costs, discourage all contact by post or email, employ jobbing drones to man the phones, they don't even have to be from this country or speak good English, and every shareholder is that much happier. Who gives a monkey's if the customers don't respect us anymore? They'll still give us their money.
And because larger chain stores are taking all the trade from traditional local businesses, you get similarly poor levels of service from deliverymen who are given tight schedules and presumably fairly low pay, and therefore don't really give a shit about completing simple jobs such as uninstalling a washing machine. It's left to the independent tradesmen like my landlady's friend Robin to provide any sort of personalised service.
My problem is that I can't remember what things were like in the old days. It's barely conceivable, but maybe companies had dedicated customer service agents who were fully trained in their field and perhaps even sat with their colleagues, with nary a premium rate number or warehouse full of unmotivated phone monkeys in sight. Apparently in Japan they hold no truck with delivery windows of "all morning" or "all afternoon", they give you a 20-minute window and are never late. There's no reason this model couldn't be adopted here, except for the obvious monetary one. So thanks to companies everywhere, we'll continue hurtling towards our ultimate goal of a cold, impersonal society where everyone is programmed to provide as little help and goodwill as possible. Thanks for reading - now fuck off :-)
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