Your Call Is Well Downour List Of Priorities
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday November 22, 2008
"YOUR call is important to us" has become one of those automatically suspect phrases, joining "the cheque's in the mail" and "your bank is pleased to announce service improvements". The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has announced a crackdown on phone companies that do not respond to complaints quickly or effectively. Is this a sensible use of resources? The problem here, surely, is not the technology, which is always going to be fiddly, or the contracts, which are incomprehensible by design, but the unreal expectations that phone companies encourage in their customers. Clearly a customer's call cannot be important or a computer would not be answering the phone. So why not be honest? "We couldn't care less about you or your call, frankly. Go away." It may not be terribly polite, but at least customers know where they stand. Any who persist can then be transferred with a clear conscience to the phone in the goods lift. Problem solved.
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald
