Grumpy Old Men?
The other day I received an email from an old customer, a fellow equally grumpy middle-aged man, which will strike a chord with many of you out there. Here it is line for line.
“I have a rant to discuss and one which I know you will want to participate. 0800 numbers that charge 14 pence per minute and then spend the next 2 minutes giving you a list of options at 14 pence a minute. Telling you its being recorded at, you’ve guessed it, 14 pence per minute. You know and I know this is a ploy to stop the now angry customer swearing down the phone. This call will form the basis of their next seminar on Customer Anger Management and how to control it effectively and at the same time charging once again 14 pence a bloody minute. Then they say during the conversation “are you happy to wait whilst I find your details” at 14 pence per minute. 84 pence my last call to the bank cost. I could have rung New Zealand all day for that!
Then they have the brass neck to employ people who can’t speak the language so you spend twice as long asking him to repeat what he said. They have even tried to hide the fact that they are using sweat shops in Mumbai doubling up as call centres when the first thing you are greeted with is ‘ Hi its RICHARD Singh how can I help you ,this call maybe recorded blah. Press one if you know your name. Press 2 if you know the address you live at, written on the paper in front of you that also has your post code on it. Press 3 if you know the 27 digit number of the extension of the person you are trying to contact etc etc”
The Great Outsourcing Scam
This brought back vivid memories of my old Barclays days when the division I worked for hit on the novel idea of off-shoring several of the functions carried out quite reliably at the Head Office in Basingstoke, just at about the same time most UK Corporates were realizing what a crap idea this really was, especially for a supposedly customer-focused business. Soon our customers were about to be greeted by cheery sounding “Peters”, “Rogers” and “Harrys” all the way courtesy of technology from the sub continent; to be precise, the off shore operations were based inChennai,India, a sort of down market Basingstoke. Overnight our service degenerated into a farce and, as with all crap ideas, nobody would actually admit it was theirs.
Now none of us had anything against the people in India other than they were simply clueless as to what we did and what our customers expected – which, in truth, was not their fault – and they very quickly conveyed that impression to the customers they dealt with. Although senior management insisted this was a great idea there was no disguising that it was an unmitigated disaster; that it was all based in Chennai was to have a wonderful irony a few years on.
Wee Willie Addresses The Nation…from The Rooftops Of Churchill Plaza
Barely a year after the experiment began and with precious little good cheer about the state of the business as we lurched into the beginnings of the recession, we received notification that our Great Leader, a strange little Scottish fellow I named Wee Willie of Basingstoke Towers, wanted to address us all via a conference call; we called it his “State of the Nation” address. Although not quite instilling the fear factor the little fat lad in North Korea commands, we were still expected to listen in and obey, although it was not mandatory to get on our knees and start wailing uncontrollably – at least until he announced that all bonuses were once again going to him.
When working from home the drill for one of these calls was to register, put the iron on and crack on with a few shirts for the weekend; ironing in terms of tedium was about the equivalent of a conference call from Wee Willie. This particular day England’s cricket team were on tour in India playing a test match, by sheer coincidence, in Chennai and, for a change, things were going well on the field, en route for a decent first innings total. With the benefit of my office television and a strategically positioned ironing board Wee Willie could drone away at will.
With the conference call about to begin, my Morphy Richards spurted out a blast of steam and off I went determined to at least keep up my rate of one shirt an over and not blow off any steam at the spin I was about to listen to. However, soon Wee Willie was spinning it far more dangerously than the Indian spinners and, according to our leader, all was serene in the Basingstoke garden.
Wee Willie Jnr – Heir Apparent
Alongside Wee Willie, presumably on the balcony awaiting a gathering of the faithful for a march past on the Basingstoke inner ring-road, sat his sidekick and heir apparent, Wee Willie Jnr and the guy in “control” of Chennai – if you could call it control. It was the usual corporate “its a beautiful world” rubbish and so when the facilitator said the words “if you have any questions please press 1” somehow an outer body experience began; this was both career defining and almost simultaneously career ending. My jaw dropped as did the iron when I heard those words “and the first question is from Steve Wilson. Please go ahead with your question, Steve.” Had Wee Willie ever heard of Steve Wilson?
“I’m sorry” I began “but having just listened to what you have said over the last twenty minutes (and ironed five shirts) I think I must have been working for a different business for the last couple of years.” And then the last few years of sheer pent up frustration at our sheer ineptitude, arrogance to customers and blatant inability to acknowledge we were a shambles just exploded into effectively a career ending outburst; unlike in the land of the little fat lad though there was no knock on the door and a van awaiting me.
The Peasants are Revolting
This attracted numerous emails from colleagues, the funniest of all being from the customer support staff apparently cheering at their desks; as a colleague told me “we were all nodding in agreement but pissing our pants at the same time!” My phone was going mad with texts in support and emails were pouring in. Wee Willie, not used to civil disobedience, did what he did best and passed the buck to Wee Willie Jnr who lamely attempted to diffuse the situation before rioting commenced on the inner ring-road.
Junior attempted to explain the recession to me but he was no Robert Peston and floundered when I countered “I am not a numpty!” to which the email traffic ramped up again with calls for “Numpty for MD!” Clearly sensing he was losing, he tried to hand back to Wee Willie but his Teflon coating was having none of it and so Jnr tried to convince me that Chennai would be wonderful next year to which my retort of “the only good thing to come out of Chennai is that England are 173 for 2!” caused uproar.
The Job Centre
As it was Christmas I ended the call with a suggestion that I better nip down to the Job Centre now as there may be a few spare Santa jobs going. The silence from Basingstoke Towers was deafening. Of course the usual olive branch was offered in the form of a state visit to Bradford from Jnr in the new year – which never happened presumably because he had never heard of the place – and nothing at all changed, in fact, we got worse.
Out-sourcing is only ever about saving money by cutting costs and to hell with customer service. The art of delivering this within a business is to ensure that, as a senior manager, you have moved on before everybody else realizes that it is a total disaster and customers are leaving in droves. So it suits the UK corporate time-frame for most senior managers of a move every three years just in time to walk out the door and leave the mess to pin on somebody else; a bit like Ed Balls really.
My old friend only experienced what most of us do daily and the really sad bit is that there is not a lot we can do about it because nobody is there long enough to pin any blame on. So to “Peter”, “Roger” and “Harry” my apologies if we seem a bit grumpy in old Blighty…it’s not your fault but you’re all we have…even at 14p a minute.
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