As regular readers will be aware, I am moving house soon (this week in fact). This event, which happens somewhere in this country every day...hundreds of times a day I am sure...has thrown up a number of topics for discussion over the past few weeks and, again, does not disappoint.
My task today was to arrange for BT to redirect callers from my old office number to my new one. This is a service which many people use without a hitch (or so I was told on the phone by the very helpful helpline man).
This may not surprise many of you but they have messed it up. I won't go in to details but the helpline man reassured me that it was very rare that mistakes occur and that he was terribly sorry that, for 6 working days, no one will be able to contact me on my work number because it has been switched off. Until they can rectify the problem I assume anyone trying to call me will believe I have fallen off the face of the earth.
This reminds me of a joke I regularly share with my sister. We often ask seemingly obvious questions to shop people, helpline staff, sales professionals and ticket office types. Things like "Do you do this in any other sizes?", "Can you tell me when that will be finished?", "How many of these have you sold recently?" and "Could you provide a vegetarian meal on my flight?". And when we ask these questions we are often told "I've never been asked that before!".
I am exaggerating slightly of course, but it never ceases to amaze me how little people know about their jobs and how many mistakes they make. If any of you have ever been in the news you will know how inaccurate the reporting was, not just because of a bias intended to make the story more entertaining but because simple facts were wrong. And any of you who have tried to buy a house, a car, a plane ticket or a television will have discovered that there is often something wrong with it.
Given that these people do this job every day of their lives (my BT guy works in the Home Moving department of BT) you would think that they would become quite knowledgeable and skilled in their area.
Before this turns in to a rant (which it may have done already) I want to use this opportunity to draw out some useful lessons.
1. You may think that knowing your stuff is commonplace and does not distinguish you. After all, you are just doing your job. But remember it is rare and therefore worth a premium price. That is important to take in to account when you are selling yourself.
2. Systems should be able to be bypassed under extenuating circumstances. What would normally take 6 working days should be able to be achieved in 1 or 2 when the fault lies with the company providing the service and time is of the essence. This requires giving lowly staff authority to make decisions without jumping through a lot of red tape.
3. When things go wrong they should be properly evaluated afterwards and the cause of the problem rectified, even if this means redesigning the whole system. At SAP every complaint is logged and before a new version of software is released the glitches from the previous version are ironed out. It may contain new glitches of course, but all the old complaints will have been addressed.
4. Lowly staff (as they are seen by their bosses) should be empowered to compensate clients or customers who have been subject to mistakes without jumping through lots of hoops first. I would not be writing this now if my sweet BT man had told me I would be getting money off my next bill.
I am looking for other lessons out of this frustration. I am struggling to find more meaning than I have thus far drawn out (and even that was pushing it, I admit!). However, one consolation I always have - this too shall pass. In the meantime I look forward to some relief from the constantly ringing phone while I pack my boxes and wait for the removal company who, hopefully, have done this before!
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