Do we treat our customers as individuals?I had an experience this week which caused me to reflect on how companies think about (or indeed don’t think about) their customers. I received a bill for £400 ground rent on a property I own. It seemed a lot but the bill and accompanying letter gave no indication of the time period covered. In addition the letter contained a threat to add charges should I not pay up by 1st September. I rang up the company listed on the letterhead – a company I’d never heard of by the way. Eventually I got onto someone who could deal with my query. He had a nice friendly tone. I bet he’s been through some customer service training. He explained that they were the collection agents for the landlord company. I queried what time frame the £400 charge covered and was told it was four years. Obvious question – why hadn’t I been billed for ground rent in the last four years? Well he thought it had just slipped to the bottom of their client’s to do list. ‘So your client doesn’t bother collecting rent for four years but I get a letter threatening action if it takes me more than six weeks to pay?’ In a surprised tone he said that this was a standard letter they sent out and of course they’d be willing to make instalment arrangements with me if I wished. So this company which had probably invested a bit in customer service phone training didn’t bother to consider that people who hadn’t received a bill in four years might just be a little ticked off by the ‘standard’ letter. Neither had they considered that staff were probably going to be getting more than a few calls from irritated bill recipients. Now you might argue that I’m not the company’s customer, the ground rent landlords are. Yes you’re probably right but they need to interact with me to get the job done and the whole thing reflects badly on them as well as the ground rent landlord and doesn’t make them look too good in the eyes of their frontline staff. It all points to the need to really think through how standard procedures are going to appear to people in non-standard situations. Add a CommentYour comment will appear once it has been approved. |