I have blogged before about companies who seem to not want to attract any more business than they have already. I found another one last week. I was browsing the web site of a company who specialise in publishing self help legal documents. You know the kind of stuff, How to make a will, get divorced, get on the property ladder (usually the chronology runs the other way but you get the idea). Anyway I found one pack that looked useful but couldn't find any reference to another one that I was looking for. So I mailed to ask if they did a publication on this topic. I got a very rapid response. Here it is
Thank you for your email unfortunately (company name deleted) cant help with this matter. Regards.
So I then went to the check out cart to order the book that they did have that I wanted. I found that my postcode was invalid and there was no space to enter that I lived outside the UK. Having spent a few minutes registering as a customer and putting all my details into their system I felt a bit peeved about this and kept the page open to see if there was some trick that could be used to get around this problem. I assumed that they might want to speed one of their books on its way to me. So I wrote to ask how I could pay and again got a very rapid response, which ran.
Thank you for your email unfortunately our website will only accept credit cards with UK address and we only dispatch to the UK. Regards
Well that wasn't too much of a problem as the book could be dispatched to the UK and I could collect it there. So I wrote to ask if there was another way in which I could pay - possibly with an electronic transfer from a UK bank. The reply soon came back:
The only way you can get the book you require is to get someone in the UK to purchase for you. We can't give bank details for mail order customer. Regards
This was now beginning to feel like Monty Python's cheese shop sketch - except instead of thinking up excuses for why they didn't have a certain kind of cheese it was more about what payment methods I couldn't use. I was also starting to get irritated by the lack of any apology or constructive thinking on their sales team's part. I fired off a final salvo:
I appreciate your very rapid responses. I run a business and I realise how important that is. I am surprised how disinterested you seem in attracting custom. Is it possible to pay for the book with a cheque drawn on a British bank account? Regards
I deleted the line that I was going to write about being a blogger who sometimes writes about (lack of) customer service. I didn't want to raise the temperature any more on a Friday afternoon.
Finally I got a reply that they would send me the book on receipt of a cheque drawn on a British account (but only probabaly after it has cleared as well).
It just left me wondering - am I grumpy old man or is this company really badly adapted to doing business in the 21st Century?
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2 comments:
No, you're the sane one.
The thing that the company's waste is the one thing I never have enough of: time. It can take forever to find customer service, to explain what you want, to get routed to the right place..again..again...and to get promised that someone will get back to you. It's a scourge, beyond satire.
I can't count the hours wasted on banks, computer vendors, phone companies, airlines. And it's all so pointless: how much are they saving, vs. the irritation they are causing?
Irritation they don't care about - especially the companies who minmally staff their call centres and then rack up the Eurocents while making you listen to piped music of their choice. "Alle onze medewerkers zijn in gesprek" was one of the first Dutch phrases that I learnt - though that is not to say it is a specifically Dutch curse.
Despite all the talk about globalisation many companies still have their necks in the sand about doing international business. I run a one-man business and in the last 18 months my client base has included 8 countries, including non-EU ones and I manage to deal wth international payments and transfers without a diploma in international accountancy. So why can't a fairly large pubishing house do the same?
The same issue arose again today. I called my insurance company, as I am thinking about buying a second car to use as a run-around in England and as I have a maximum 75% no claims discount I would like to carry this over to a second vehicle (aside from the fact that I can only drive one car at the same time). Turns out that they would do it on a Dutch-plated car but not on an English-plated one. And I am sure if I go to a English company they will ask for a sworn translation of my Dutch policy. As ex-pats / international citizens we run into huge and often seemingly unnecessary transaction costs and barriers.
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