Great Britain re-invents great customer service (From Watford Observer)

Great Britain re-invents great customer service

3:25pm Saturday 17th January 2009

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It`s at times like these that corporate Britain rediscovers its love for you and I – the customer.

I loved Asda`s contribution which was a young guy who hovers around the till area with a sign held high on the end of a stick with the words “Space here” thereby directing shoppers to the nearest available till.

I think what I liked was that the sign had a pointy bit looking upward through the glass roof.

I loved that when M&S did their first big 20% off sale I went into one of their stores and recognised one of their wine buyers from a picture in their wine catalogue.

He didn`t have that uncomfortable look of man from head office coming face to face with the public ( think politicianskissing babies at election time ) His jacket was off and he was dispensing advice and wine with the rest of the team. I was so shell shocked I bought twice as much as I`d intended.

I liked that on one of my thrice weekly visits into Costco both on check out at the till and again going through security at the door the staff thanked me by name, a nice touch and ever so easy if you just take time to read the name in front of you on the membership card or credit card.

I wonder how long it will take to filter through to those companies who prefer to deal with customers via the data protection act, usually prefaced by the words “I`m sorry buttunda..” and usually whilst calling an easy to remember number, you tend to remember it when you check your phone bill and discover how much the call to 0870 PLC cost.

I called one of these to place an order, now I`ve had an account with them for 5 years, they regularly post me out a catalogue of products and even email me with product updates so you might think they value my custom.

I call the dreaded 0870 and give my name and account number and launch into my order only to be stopped in my tracks “Can I just take the full postal address” so we go through this line by line and then I`m asked “ And the telephone number at this address”

By now I`m getting a bit impatient as I suspect this is a ploy to make me spend more time on the phone at 10p a minute “ Don`t you have the telephone number ? “ I gently mutter “ Yes, but it might have changed” comes the response “ Well it hasn`t”

“ That may be but I still need it before I can process your order”

“Ok, it ends in 2851”

“ Sorry I need all of it”

“Why do you need all of it, you`ve already got it ?”

“To safeguard you”

“What do you mean, to safeguard me ?”

“It`s to prevent somebody else using your account number”

“What ? somebody else ordering and paying for goods and asking for them to be delivered somewhere else ?”

“No, we only deliver to the address set up on our system “ By now we`re going nowhere and I`m ready to throw my toys out of the pram so I suggest a compromise “ Why don`t you call me using the number on your system, if I answer the phone then you`ll know it`s me”

“Can`t do that”

“Why not ?”

“This is an ingoing call centre only”

Toys are now launched out of the pram “Ok, what`s you`re name ?”

“I`m sorry, buttunda the data protection act…….”

I retire defeated and spend the next half hour nursing my principles whilst filling in a 15 page “easy to complete” application form to open an account with one of their competitors.