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Contact centre or contact sport? Michael Dixon of Foskett Powell
examines the difficulties of trying to do business, from the calling and
the called (and the culled or cut-off) points of view. |
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Asked to suggest some thought-provoking items for an article on e-communications, I was scratching around when I remembered that I needed to telephone one of my credit card companies to change a direct debit. This was a mixed blessing. The delay while waiting to talk to someone enabled me to jot down a few notes, for use later in this article; and then the eventual contact with an agent provided an opening focus and even a demonstration of the real meaning of the term ‘customer service’. Having spent several minutes listening to advertising messages, I must have been deemed by the company eventually to have contributed sufficiently via its 0870 number to fund actually being put through to an agent. Because I feared that I might have forgotten my PIN (or PIN number as we must apparently call them; why not go the whole hog and refer to a PIN I/D number?) I aimed to register a replacement. By an unfortunate coincidence, this replacement number turned out to be the one that I thought that I had forgotten, and so the computer would not allow me to use it. So much for customer convenience. I have not yet dared to try to change back to the remembered and proffered one. |
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International Consultants' Guide July 2001
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E-Communications