Complaining - The only way to get your way?

Firstly, I've been a very lazy blogger. I've let things such as no Internet and doing lots of work on a house stop me!! Honestly where are my priorities!

As people who have read one of my earlier blogs would know, I've had some trouble with the ISP for my previous address, namely Plusnet. All those who give a damn will now love to hear I have cancelled with them, by avoiding their ludicrous cancellation rules. How did I do this? I complained that's how!

This lead me to think, I've dealt with numerous companies over the years, and they seem to have vastly varying levels of service. When I've come across the worst of this service and they refuse to do even the most basic of reasonable requests, I've gone straight through to complain.

My question is, should it be that way?

Why do basic service level employees of some companies stick so rigidly to obstructive practices? Personally I don't blame them, a human can only act within the freedom they're given and in the majority of companies I'm talking about, common sense and free thought is not encouraged.

Plus net are an example (sorry to bang on) their staff could have solved my problem in 20 seconds with a quick phone call, but they refused. Eventually their complaints manager (James Bailey, very helpful man) solved the situation with a 20 second call. Could not somebody at another level have already done this, they prob spent longer than that writing my response telling me they couldn't call. They wasted their time, my time writing the complaint and the Complaint Managers time looking into it and contacting me.

A bit of common sense at the start and things would have been done much much faster.

There must be 1000's of examples every day where customers have to complain about blatantly unfair procedures to get any joy. If companies a) treated their staff as things other than trained monkeys or b) considered the customer over whatever obstructive procedure was in the way in the first place they'd be more efficient and maybe they'd have happier customers.

Of course, there are financial benefits in being disruptive, if someone knowingly overcharged 50,000 customers and only 20,000 complain, they've made the extra on 30,000. Which very well may make any costs involved in handling the 20,000 complaints worthwhile. For example, if they delay had taken me into an new month with Plusnet, they'd have pocketed my £15 happily.

My advice, take nothing that seems unfair as read, kick up a fuss and you may get some joy. I've done the complaint handlers job before, and if most companies are like my employers, once it gets to complaint, the staff have the freedom to make fair decisions and the desire to do so also.

TTFN - Expect another post later, I'm brimming with ideas today!

Is it really so hard??

I've done the who customer facing job thing a few times. A few years behind a bar, can't avoid the customer there. A few years delivering pizzas, can't avoid the customer there. A move to a call centre and then a call centre complaint handler, can't see them but can hear them, so can't avoid them there.

Luckily (depending if you enjoy that kind of role I suppose) those days, for now at least, are behind me, but I'm still close by. Right, pointless opening? Maybe, but it does set a scene that I have some experience in service.

My point is, why do I seem to encounter incompetence or downright laziness wherever I turn? I'm not going to comment on the service the company I work for gives, too many people have hung themselves like that, I'm neutral on it, as it should probably be in my kind of job (still complaints but backroom complaints), but I can at least say I always tried my best when I was customer facing.

But of late, everyone seems to conspire against being as helpful as they can. My first rant is against Plusnet, a perfectly adequate company if you never have to communicate with them. I recently moved home (or am in the process of, see earlier blog) and out Internet provider, having never caused us hassle before was going to accompany us. Went to the website to change the address and... nope can't do it online... annoying but oh well to the phone I go, and I wait, and I wait... Now Plusnet's opening hours quite closely match my working ones and they don't do weekends, so my big chance to ring them is my breaks and a chunk out of my lunch, none of these are long enough time periods to get through.

So after trying for a couple of days I go "Screw you Plusnet I'm cancelling, Sky can do my broadband!" I go to their website and... phone or post cancellations only. Now they do have a online help thing and I post on there, want to cancel can't get through on the phone can you please call me, to which they reply, you have to phone. Yes I know this but I can't. There's no email option.. to an ISP...

Their response to this query was OFCOM make us give you two options, and phone and post are the two, the slowest and the one they can charge for. It may be compliant to their regulatory body, but it's doing enough to get by and still being as obstructive as they can, obviously cancellation isn't ideal for them. Stuff them I've logged a complaint with their ombudsman (CI something or another) and notified OFCOM of my thoughts. That'll make them sit up and take note... or not.

Next on the list, and the last one I'll mention today (ooooooh it's a long long list) is KFC. Specifically KFC Merthyr sodding Tydfil. Now I love Merthyr, it's my homeland, but we have a habit of doing things half arsed, the number of times McDonalds staff haven't quite comprehended 'No cheese', shop staff not quite sure of what's going on, that kind of thing. But tonights KFC incident did my swede right in.

I arrive late, I've been painting, I'm hungry, the OH is hungry, we want 2 fillet meals. But they have no bread... oh (partial) burger place has no bread, not a good sign. OK the OH has crispy strips and I decide on a toasted twister meal. But because of the time (As you can see the bread fairy had already been) they couldn't toast it, so it was really just a twister, for the same price. But I was hungry and it was 35 yards to McDonalds and I didn't have the patience for the cheese argument tonight, so I took it. Then it took 10 minutes to arrive (it's late.. blah blah) I mean I understand they want to go home closing time, but if you're not willing to offer the service til closing time, change the closing time. Rather than my boring soggy wrap I'd rather they would have said, sorry we're closed.

On the up side, I picked up Lonely Avenue by Ben Folds/Nick Hornby today. Give or take one stinker it's damn good, in particular From Above, delightful song. I would recommend it to anyone. Oh and for the record the HMV staff who served me was a dream, not that much can go wrong scanning a CD...

I might get perfect service somewhere tomorrow, but as Ben sings and Nick wrote, "You know what hope is? Hope is a bastard"

Night!