With the silly season reaching its peak this weekend, I thought it best not to dwell too much on issues that should be worrying us, like the greylisting of our country or the severe negative impact of the coronavirus on some segments of the economy. Instead, I want to share with you a couple of examples relating to customer care. In a way, they are stories at which we might smile, but in reality, they also reflect a tragic situation.
Last week we had to grapple with power cuts or reduced voltage supply. Whichever way you look at it, you still do not have electricity supply at the office or at home. Maybe it is because electricity supply is seen more of a necessity than an internet connection, but I have not heard or read much being said and written about the poor internet connection in most parts of Malta.
We have all experienced the situation where we would be happy whiling away our time at the computer catching up with the latest news or watching an episode of our favourite sitcom, and the internet connection slows down to the point that the picture freezes. Telecoms companies are not supplying internet according to their stipulated contracts. Whichever way one looks at it, all three providers are guilty of this. An excellent example of poor customer service.
How many times do we have to chase businesses to give them our custom, instead of them chasing us?
There is an obvious reason for this. As houses tumbled like dominoes and were replaced by apartments, each internet connection was replaced by five. As such, the service that was shared among, say, 40 houses in a street in a village centre, is now shared by 200 apartments, while the Planning Authority did not bother to make any impact assessment when giving out permits such as these. An excellent example of how to ignore your major stakeholder – the public.
I suspect the power cuts we have been having is also due to this lack of any evaluation of the impact of this building development, whose only objective was to enable a few greedy speculators to make hay while the sun shines. These same speculators are now complaining that they feel harassed by political parties for donations. I can imagine them turning up their noses and saying to themselves, “we are too rich now to bother with politicians”.
Another excellent example of poor customer service is calling anywhere, enquiring about a service, and being told that you would be called back, but the call never arrives. Businesses guilty of this will bring up all sorts of excuses, such as not being able to recruit capable staff, systems failure, or being unable to cope with the amount of work they have.
One calls back to ask what happened to one’s enquiry and is told to repeat one’s requirement because, in the meantime, the customer’s records got lost. You are promised that someone will call you back but the call fails to arrive once more. How many times do we have to chase businesses to give them our custom, instead of them chasing us?
We all have our own tales of customer service. Unfortunately, it is easier to remember the times when we were given a bad service than the times when we were provided with a good service. However, we need to stick it into our heads that we can become a top-of-the-class economy only when we learn the value of good customer service and exceed customers’ expectations. Until then, we remain a second division economy.