Letting off steam about public services…

Sometimes I just blog to get things off my chest.  You are excused reading this if you don’t want to, this one’s really for my benefit.  If you stick with it there may be a moral at the end.

So, here we go.

Last week I tweeted light-heartedly about how ridiculous it was to need three forms of ID to get Tower Hamlets council to condescend to sell me a  parking permit for outside my house.  Especially as, despite having my council tax bill with me as ID, the computer insisted that my house wasn’t a residential property so wasn’t eligible for resident’s parking (so can I have the tax back?)   Leave it a couple of days, I was told, come back at the end of the week.  We’ll have found your house by then and we’ll sell you what you want.

Went back on Saturday because the form downloaded from TH’s website told me they were open all morning – to find the office locked and a closed until Monday sign swinging in the door.

Went back today.  Computer has found my house.  Sadly none of the three forms of ID I have with me (including the utility bill and the council tax bill they ask for), have my first name as well as surname and address  on them, and the things that do – library card (issued by TH council) bank cards – they won’t accept as valid forms of ID. 

So they won’t let me apply to buy a parking permit. 

And I swept out in high dudgeon.

And the moral of the story is

• Life would be easier if we had one form of ID accepted as standard proof everywhere.  Thanks to the mis-handling of ID cards by the last government this is unlikely to happen in my lifetime (which may be considerably shortened by the hike I experience in my blood pressure every time I need a parking permit.)
•  Customer service matters. Tower Hamlet’s council does a good job on the big stuff.  If asked as I left the office this morning, however, I would unhesitatingly have voted for it to be overthrown in a bloodless coup (can you vote for a coup?) on the grounds of  extreme jobsworthy-ness.   Doesn’t matter how efficient the back office functions of a business are, if the points at which customers come into contact with it don’t work then the business is undermined.  This is great customer service.  Repeatedly telling a frustrated customer that you won’t sell her something because she hasn’t brought her passport with her, is not.

According to their complaints procedure, TH welcomes complaints from residents aged 5 upwards because it helps them improve their service.  But of course I won’t complain.  This is not the kind of thing people complain about. It isn’t a major injustice, it doesn’t affect my children’s schooling or the care of elderly relatives, it’s just another minor irritant to be dealt with so that my sister can park when she visits. 

Thank you for listening.  That feels much better.

Excellent, very good, good, fair or poor?

Out shopping yesterday, nipped into the bank to pay in a couple of cheques.  A researcher from the bank called me this morning to check how my transaction had gone.  How often did I use that branch of the bank?  Would I recommend the branch to other people?  How likely was I to buy financial products or services from that branch?  Did I trust it to offer me financial advice  in my best interests?  The researcher giggled when I told her, slightly bemused, that I just happened to be passing that branch when I remembered that I had a cheque to pay in -  it isn’t as though I keep a mental list of favourite bank branches I have used in the past. But she had a quota of calls to make so we ploughed on.  How long had I waited to be served?  Had the person behind the counter been polite to me?  Called me by my name?  Handled my query without being interrupted by other members of staff?   What suggestions could I make to improve the experience of using that branch of the bank?  I refrained from suggesting that they could do fewer customer surveys and use the money to pay a better rate of interest on their current accounts, and simply assured her that I thought the Canary Wharf branch of Lloyds is just fine and dandy as it is, and thanks for caring what I think.

Things have changed hugely in customer service  in the past decade, and thank god for that. I started my working life in the theatre and vividly remember trying to get the box office and stage door staff to do some customer-service training on the grounds that we might do better if we didn’t frighten off one potential customer in every three by being rude to them.  Sue, the scarily truculent stage door keeper, refused point-blank to do the training on the grounds that “I don’t work in Disneyland.  This is not America”.  I wonder how long she lasted (and what she would make of being asked to rate her experience of using a Creditpoint). I’m all in favour of  improving customer service, and of gathering feedback from customers to make sure it’s happening.  Can’t help thinking that Lloyds are taking things just slightly too far.

Your call is important to us…

My dishwasher broke down a couple of weeks before  Christmas and when…  Well you really don’t need or want to know the ins and outs of this  story.  Here I am still waiting for it to be fixed, one month and four, soon-to-be five re-arranged engineer-vists later.    Idly holding on the phone to speak to the helpline again this afternoon, I googled Hotpoint Customer Service, and found  a whole circle of Hell, populated with people frothing at the mouth and desperate to share their experiences.  The online comments might eventually have some impact on the company’s behaviour -  if enough people check things out online before they buy and are put off by what they find.  But it did make me  realise how very puny the power of the customer still is – there are comments on some of these blogs dating back to 2006, but Hotpoint/Indesit ploughs on serenely, not apparently seeing the need to change its ways one jot.  For what it’s worth I will be adding my rants to the other blogs, but more because it will help me unload some rage than because I expect it to do any good.

Thank you for holding.