What the FUCK is wrong with the service sector in 2006?
In the last month i've undergone my 5th house move in 5 years but never before have I experienced so much poor service and error from almost every company i've had the unfortunate necessity to deal with.
NTL, to nobodies suprise, remains far and away the worst. Nobody expects NTL to get things right. They never have, and I doubt they will when they rebrand themselves Virgin in the near future. In short - failed to book appointment with engineer, failed to retain phone number despite offering service, failed to restore broadband at correct speed, failed to honour retention offers (naturally I threatened them with cancellation) with actual services. Awful.
British Gas - Last year they sent me bills for no fewer than three previous occupants. How they don't realise that if a new account holder is setting up in a house the old account holders will no longer be present is beyond me. This year, they managed to mess up my final bills, sending them not just to the wrong forwarding address, but to entirely the wrong person. My name is not Colin.
Perhaps more upsetting than mistakes made by individual companies such as those above is one defining issue, and it applies equally to the above as it does to anybody else. I could understand if a company wanted to implement a policy stating that they will not call customers back personally. As strange as it sounds, I could live with this. What I cannot stand is that in the past month i've been promised a call back by no less than five different companies, and each and every one has failed, in most cases repeatedly, to live up to this.
Everybody believes they have their own special way of dealing with the poor bastards in the call centres, but really, no one way, for me at least is proving any more effective than another. You can be assured that if you're rude, particularly if you make it personal, that the person you are speaking to will do whatever they can to hold back whatever it is you want them to do for you without actually revealing to anybody that might be watching that they are in fact proving anti-customer service, however, being pleasant, even complimentary doesn't seem to hold any weight anymore. Perhaps it's no longer taken as sincere, given how frequently people try it.
The modern service sector certainly isn't customer focussed. Trace the root causes of this far enough back and I can't help but wonder if any company can hope to compete with good customer relations any more. The largest companies retain customers through apathy and convinience (read: fear of inconvinience - how long do you want to go without a broadband connection if you cancel your current provider).
Maybe I have a blinkered view. I bemoan the apathy and convinience but am speaking mainly from personal and very much present experience. I am seriously considering finally severing my ties with NTL, but I probably won't. After all, its working.. at the moment. It'll be fine until I have to move again, and by the time I have to move again, i'll have forgotten just how bad the experience was this time around.
If anybody can give me the name of a broadband provider, a landline provider, and a dual-fuel energy provider that will give me genuine customer service, it would be much appreciated.
And with a glance back to the subject I realise 2 things. First, way too much distance from there to here, again. Concice I cannot be on this issue. Second, completely drifted from my original intention. I intended to explore the mindset of the people on the other end of the phone, but maybe its really not complicated enough to explore. They're heavily monitored on the length of calls, not much else. If anybody is recording their calls its probably only to select a few at random for the trainees.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Thursday, June 01, 2006
If I don't start writing things down...
...i'm never going to remember anything.
I'm sure when I was in my teens I could remember copious amounts of useless information. Now i'm lucky to remember where I put my battery charger 3 days ago.
Anyway, never mind.
Having taken it upon myself to move into a one-bedroom flat I thought it was time I looked into doing some blogging about 3 years after everybody else.
I've been saying for years that I seem to be 3 years behind everybody else on everything. I'm come to despise certain types of blog, and most myspace pages (though so few of those actually bother to use their blogs).
Listening to Podcasts is taking over my life. This isn't a bad thing - for once i'm not 3 years behind. 3 years behind the early podcasts perhaps but now is the point at which they are becoming popular. I seem to be sticking mostly to the Podshow family, having started off with Cinecast, now Filmspotting (how I found that? no idea anymore) one listener comment mentioned a podcast named the Daily Source Code. Being a sort-of coder and pining for Podcasts that would entertain me for more than an hour or two a week I went and had a look only to find one of the earliest shows around. I've been keeping up to date with the DSC since February(ish) and listening through as many old shows as I can, and..
I can't deny, its beginning to wear thin. I do seem to like to overexpose myself to things, whilst being well aware of the likely effect this will eventually have on my personal enjoyment.
Nonetheless, my Juice (ipodder) is loaded up with my current favorites
Pacific Coast Hellway - The kind of thing you almost feel you could introduce your friends to, but don't because you feel slightly uneasy at some of the pretty harmless but slightly jarring racial slurs. This is, make no mistake, a well produced show with the kind of hooks that I don't think I ever experienced on the radio.
Steve Gilmor - I'm enjoying his daily shows more than the gang shows, although they're altogether varied. Its absolutely amazing to finally be able to hear what amounts to a radio show about something I find interesting. In truth though, Gilmor and co. tend to talk a little above my level of understanding at time, using language I wonder if they may have invented themselves.
Daily Source Code - I can't deny, I am a big fan of the shows Adam Curry does with his wife Patricia. Whether this means i'm pining for some kind of podcast verison of daytime television I don't know. When she first appeared to me on his show she annoyed the crap out of me - I misjudged her to be not particularly intelligent. Her voice did, and still does put me in mind of Alan Partridges girlfriend Sonia in his second run, which may have also contributed to my negative opinion, as Sonia certainly wasn't that bright. Once you get used to Patricia Paay she comes across as a very down to earth celeb (of course, again, I wasn't aware of her celebrity when I first heard her) and an excellent foil to Adam, keeping him firmly in touch with the real world that you sense he might forget to spend any time in if given the opportunity. All in all, i'll be listening to the DSC for some time to come yet.
Thats enough about podcasts for now; I just wanted to sum up that i'm consuming a lot of time listening to these things. Thankfully a lot of this occurs during my daily commute. I will save the shows I know i'll enjoy the most for the car, as I know i'll listen properly. The 'man' can tell you all he wants that radio is a distraction from good driving - I don't buy into it. Anybody who needs 100% concentration on the road driving down an essentially straight motorway for 30 minutes each day is probably so worked up that they're the more likely to have an accident. No, in my car I can concentrate on a podcast. I have real trouble concentrating on one when trying to do anything else on my computer besides play little flash games, which is fine, as they provide light entertainment in the background of the main entertainment.
What else. I'm in a band. How I came to be in a band I can barely understand. I am a reluctantly quiet individual that craves a spotlight i'm not comfortable being in. As I have no intention of paying for the psychology to find out why that is, I live with it, relatively happy, but I am concerned that my role in this band, essentially a minimum talent role, could still come unstuck when transported to a raised platform in front of.. probably about 10 people, but thats not really the point. I'm extremely interested in getting some half decent recording kit and trying to produce something myself. What i'm not quite sure. Complicated it certainly cannot be. Thankfully, complicated isn't what matters in music. The recipe for good music itself is complex. The music need not be. My goal is to better understand the recipe. Production is a great interest of mine, particularly audio.
No i'm not going to start a podcast. I don't have a voice for it, and if you can imagine what I can't quite believe you're still reading in a spoken word format, you have arrived at what a personal podcast from me would be. A podcast about something - maybe someday. As Adam Curry constantly (and I do mean constantly) reminds us, theres a lot of shit happening..
Out!
I'm sure when I was in my teens I could remember copious amounts of useless information. Now i'm lucky to remember where I put my battery charger 3 days ago.
Anyway, never mind.
Having taken it upon myself to move into a one-bedroom flat I thought it was time I looked into doing some blogging about 3 years after everybody else.
I've been saying for years that I seem to be 3 years behind everybody else on everything. I'm come to despise certain types of blog, and most myspace pages (though so few of those actually bother to use their blogs).
Listening to Podcasts is taking over my life. This isn't a bad thing - for once i'm not 3 years behind. 3 years behind the early podcasts perhaps but now is the point at which they are becoming popular. I seem to be sticking mostly to the Podshow family, having started off with Cinecast, now Filmspotting (how I found that? no idea anymore) one listener comment mentioned a podcast named the Daily Source Code. Being a sort-of coder and pining for Podcasts that would entertain me for more than an hour or two a week I went and had a look only to find one of the earliest shows around. I've been keeping up to date with the DSC since February(ish) and listening through as many old shows as I can, and..
I can't deny, its beginning to wear thin. I do seem to like to overexpose myself to things, whilst being well aware of the likely effect this will eventually have on my personal enjoyment.
Nonetheless, my Juice (ipodder) is loaded up with my current favorites
Pacific Coast Hellway - The kind of thing you almost feel you could introduce your friends to, but don't because you feel slightly uneasy at some of the pretty harmless but slightly jarring racial slurs. This is, make no mistake, a well produced show with the kind of hooks that I don't think I ever experienced on the radio.
Steve Gilmor - I'm enjoying his daily shows more than the gang shows, although they're altogether varied. Its absolutely amazing to finally be able to hear what amounts to a radio show about something I find interesting. In truth though, Gilmor and co. tend to talk a little above my level of understanding at time, using language I wonder if they may have invented themselves.
Daily Source Code - I can't deny, I am a big fan of the shows Adam Curry does with his wife Patricia. Whether this means i'm pining for some kind of podcast verison of daytime television I don't know. When she first appeared to me on his show she annoyed the crap out of me - I misjudged her to be not particularly intelligent. Her voice did, and still does put me in mind of Alan Partridges girlfriend Sonia in his second run, which may have also contributed to my negative opinion, as Sonia certainly wasn't that bright. Once you get used to Patricia Paay she comes across as a very down to earth celeb (of course, again, I wasn't aware of her celebrity when I first heard her) and an excellent foil to Adam, keeping him firmly in touch with the real world that you sense he might forget to spend any time in if given the opportunity. All in all, i'll be listening to the DSC for some time to come yet.
Thats enough about podcasts for now; I just wanted to sum up that i'm consuming a lot of time listening to these things. Thankfully a lot of this occurs during my daily commute. I will save the shows I know i'll enjoy the most for the car, as I know i'll listen properly. The 'man' can tell you all he wants that radio is a distraction from good driving - I don't buy into it. Anybody who needs 100% concentration on the road driving down an essentially straight motorway for 30 minutes each day is probably so worked up that they're the more likely to have an accident. No, in my car I can concentrate on a podcast. I have real trouble concentrating on one when trying to do anything else on my computer besides play little flash games, which is fine, as they provide light entertainment in the background of the main entertainment.
What else. I'm in a band. How I came to be in a band I can barely understand. I am a reluctantly quiet individual that craves a spotlight i'm not comfortable being in. As I have no intention of paying for the psychology to find out why that is, I live with it, relatively happy, but I am concerned that my role in this band, essentially a minimum talent role, could still come unstuck when transported to a raised platform in front of.. probably about 10 people, but thats not really the point. I'm extremely interested in getting some half decent recording kit and trying to produce something myself. What i'm not quite sure. Complicated it certainly cannot be. Thankfully, complicated isn't what matters in music. The recipe for good music itself is complex. The music need not be. My goal is to better understand the recipe. Production is a great interest of mine, particularly audio.
No i'm not going to start a podcast. I don't have a voice for it, and if you can imagine what I can't quite believe you're still reading in a spoken word format, you have arrived at what a personal podcast from me would be. A podcast about something - maybe someday. As Adam Curry constantly (and I do mean constantly) reminds us, theres a lot of shit happening..
Out!
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