Categories: uncategorized
Date: 20 July 2006 10:10:01
Mainly annoyed that Magda has been off the road. She has developed a fault with her thrust bearing. You, yes you! Stop sniggering at the back there. It is a major component of the clutch. I've not used her since Friday, except to take her to the garage.
That is the next annoying thing. Can I get hold of anyone at the garage? No. The one person who I need to speak to is never there. He arrives late, doesn't call and always seems to be out when you ring back.
It seems that good customer service is becoming a rarity. Even my own company finds it difficult to communicate. I'm still waiting for my American and French colleagues to provide urgent information that I need. That's now 10 days for the French and 3 for the Yanks.
If its me. then I get descended on by people all over the world. I get calls, e-mails and faxes. Yet when I try to get the same assistance from managers I get nothing. Its not like this is a new event.
Last year I was put onto a second contract to offer part time assistance to another customer. The idea was that I'd look over their working methods and offer help, advice and new processes. When I got there they actually wanted me to do all their day to day work. They were told that I could help for 2 days per week but that I'd be working solely for my other customer the rest of the time.
What it turned into was me doing all their running around. Chasing people across all 24 time zones and being "told" by them that I was exclusively their's. When things started to go seriously wrong with our Taiwanese and South African operations, I was called 24 hours a day.
I escalated and called the 2 UK managers running the account. Nothing. No return calls. No help in chasing other offices. Nothing.
I called the Sales Director. Nothing.
In the end I had to go to the UK MD. He finally agreed that I was to get out of there and let the managers sort things out.
The upshot? Six months later the UK Sales Director accused me of screwingup our company's relationship with the customer. Until he found out that I had kept every e-mail I'd sent to everyone in the company, including him. Then he went very, vey quiet. I've never heard from him again.