NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

I really think I am in danger of turning into a grumpy old man – well, grumpy anyway! Traditionally over Christmas one winds down, recharges and one’s focus is shifted to New Year Resolutions. A new year and a new start. Optimism is almost palpable. Then we return to work and it all goes horribly wrong.

In the space of a very fraught 24 hour period I tried to open a bank account and transfer some funds between two accounts. My quest began with a trawl through the web sites, looking for appropriate but elusive forms and resulted in a phone number trail. I was then treated to the increasingly frustrating delights of ‘automated assistance’. “Please choose from the following indecipherable four options. . . . I am sorry I did not detect a response, (tut) we will try to connect you to an operator” Some twenty minutes later, once one of the operators was no longer busy, I was connected to a call centre, presumably in Outer Mongolia, where customer care is as alien as – well, an alien thing! As there seems little point in airing my frustration with someone whose command of the English language leaves plenty to be desired, I rang off, bracing myself for a personal visit to the branch in my local town centre.

The straight forward bank account, I was told, would take up to 3 months to open and despite being charged £20 for a ‘TT’ express service, the transfer of funds would not be available for two days. In my enthusiasm to expedite matters I asked whether I could complete the forms there and then. Apparently I was sent the wrong forms so ‘No’ actually. They would however post a new set to me. Undaunted I asked whether it was possible for new forms to be e-mailed to the branch so I could complete everything there and then. ‘Yes and No’ was the considered answer. Yes they could be e-mailed but as the forms were created in a higher software version than was available at this branch, the e-mail would be unreadable. Naturally. “Well, how about a fax then?” Ah – the trying to get one’s way by being sneaky ploy eh? Again the answer was an unequivocal “Yes and No”. Yes it was apparently possible but no, because it wasn’t quite that simple. How stupid of me to think such a thing! You see whilst head office could fax the forms to the branch, there is a central fax number for inter-branch faxes. Inter-branch faxes are then collected at pre-determined times by someone in another department. They in turn would send an e-mail to announce the arrival of a fax. And only then could someone from this department go to the other department to retrieve the fax.

And voila – my New Year, new start spirit squashed instantly. My recommendation – nay, my plea for all exhibitors for this year is to make your New Year’s resolution to make it easy for your customers to do business with you. We seem to have so many examples of terrible customer care – let’s be the exception to the rule. Please?