A Monument To Mediocrity

Many of you out there will be aware of just how frustrating it can be to deal with call centres. In this case our customers solicitors had requested title documents from a lender on 18th November and by the date of the letter these had still not been received. Our customer had called the lender on two occasions and on one occasion had been told they had been despatched and then on another that they hadn’t but would be in ‘forty-eight hours’. In despair the customer called me. I attempted to call the lender only to be on hold, on the three separate occasions I called them, for not less than fifteen minutes each time. At around 17.40 I eventually received the call, from the lender, to confirm that the title documents had been sent by guaranteed delivery.

The morale of the story: -

1. Don’t be intimidated just because you are dealing with a big name company. To cut costs this type of company, especially banks, are staffed by persons who are less able than you.
2. Get angry and do not be afraid to mix it.
3. Talk in a language morons will understand.
4. Remember that you are the customer.
5. If that fails – call me.

The names are changed.

Thursday, 04 December 2008

Ms D Jones
Deeds Department
The Bank’s Customer Operations
PO Box 666
Val Halla Road
Smugsville
Uselessshire
US12 1AP

URGENT - BY FAX AND POST

Dear Madam,

MR A SMITH and MRS F SMITH of THE COTTAGE, THE STREET, THE TOWN, THE COUNTY account 123123aaa/216

I am writing further to my two conversations with Mr Peter Nis this morning. The purpose of this letter is to put your company on notice that should the mortgage account be redeemed, it is done so without prejudice to Mr and Mrs Smith’s rights to claim against your company for all losses or damages, howsoever arising, as a result of your company’s abject, deliberate and manifest failure to release the title documents, to the above property, pursuant to the quite reasonable requests of the acting solicitors.

I am informed that the solicitors’ first approach was by routine letter of 18th November, a date in excess of fourteen days hence. Apparently, they had to write again because the mortgage account number was wrong in their letter. It would be inconceivable that they wrote without further details of your customer and it would have been eminently feasible for your company to have simply called the solicitors and asked them the position. Notwithstanding this, you have had the appropriate request far beyond any reasonable timescale and have been chased by Mrs Smith who has been told, on one occasion, that the deeds had been despatched and on another that they hadn’t but would be ‘within forty-eight hours’ – that old chestnut.

I should draw your attention to your Mr Nis who has informed me that the title deeds should go out today and that they should be received ‘within forty-eight hours’. Why not save us a load of time, by recording this message and placing it upon your answering system? Given that this is what Mrs Smith has been told, during her vain attempts to get your company to comply, you can understand why I have told Mr Nis (in no uncertain terms) that this matter will become a claim against your company, if I do not have confirmation that the said documents have been despatched by close of trade today by a guaranteed means of delivery for receipt tomorrow. Frankly, I am not interested in how busy you are, how many calls you get from your hapless customers asking for payment holidays or anything else. The amount of time this has taken is nothing short of a disgrace, is a taint upon your company and is subject to regulatory censure. Just by way of example, when calling your company today, I was informed by your call answering system that, on one option, I would have to wait around fifteen minutes then on another ten minutes. I was able to circumvent this to a certain extent, by (not surprisingly) pressing an option that would indicate that there was new business for you. I was then told that the number I needed to call, before being put through, was 0870 0100644. Unless, I am mistaken this is a national rate number which would allow your company to make money out of routine telephone calls. It is not for me to say whether my waiting for ten minutes on that line was a deliberate attempt, by your company, to mulct a customer for telephone charges, but there is an inference to be drawn. On the most elementary examination, your system is designed to frustrate, does frustrate and is hardly commensurate with the ethos of treating customers fairly. The fact that you might have a large volume of calls is entirely irrelevant; you should ensure that you have the appropriate infrastructure in place to deal with such volumes. In short, I would suggest, given the facts of this case that your organisation is incapable of properly serving its customers to an extent that they suffer as a result. Be under no illusion as to the actions I should take should you fail to comply today. In my view, you have been disingenuous to your customer when she called you.

I realise that you might seek to attempt to hide behind the Data Protection Act because I do not have written authority [Note by writer – in a subsequent call to this mob, they did try this with predictable results from both barrels of a metaphorical twelve bore]. I would not recommend this modus since all I am asking you to do is listen; I am not asking you to divulge information about our mutual customers only to confirm that the title documents have been despatched. As Mr Nis has already sought to assuage me along these lines then either you are happy to divulge this information (which is hardly prejudicial to the customers) or he is already in breach of the said Act. Please let me know which version you would prefer.

In my submission, the reality is very simple; your company is staffed by fatuous and feckless persons who do not understand that the voice at the end of the telephone is not an add on sound effect from Super Mario, or from some other anorak computer game, but a real person who has real aspirations, real objectives and a real life. Anyone would envisage (your company having its hands in the taxpayers’ till and all) that there might be some realisation that those taxpayers, from the ranks of which come our mutual customers, might need to be treated with a little respect and not fobbed off and told things that are patently not true. I would have thought that it might be reasonable for a company with the apparent credentials that we are led to believe yours has, would agree that the delay in this case represents the very antithesis of good service, which can only lead to customers being prejudiced. I would be more empathetic were what we asked for complicated  - as I said to Mr Nis what has been asked of you is not rocket science; we are not asking for a dissertation on the mysteries of the church of Rome, we are simply asking you to send out title documents. A person with the mental capacity of an eight year old could manage this.

Let me leave you under no illusions as to how very serious I view this position. If you want to conduct your business at the speed of a Diplodocus, then that is a matter for you – just do not expect my customers to accept it or pay for it. Given that you are ultimately responsible for your department’s activities (or lack of them as the case may be), I can only suggest that you personally establish the whereabouts of the title deeds and personally ensure that they are despatched as requested herein.

If you haven’t got the message yet then we will simply have to be at war. And if you find this letter gratuitously offensive then consider it reciprocation for what I consider to be the gratuitous offensiveness of treating your customer not with fairness but with contempt.

I expect confirmation that the title documents have been despatched today by guaranteed means of delivery – no more, no less.

Yours faithfully,

Mark Bracegirdle
For and on behalf of L & G Bracegirdle Limited