Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

PROGRESS AT A PRICE

My call was important to them. I knew that because the recorded message of a very nice sounding young lady kept telling me so between bursts of jarring pop music. It was just that all of their operatives were busy, right now. Yes, but we had been trying for days, first my secretary and then me. If my call is so jolly important to you, why on earth won’t you answer it?

I am far from alone in my frustration. Many of you have called my office in recent weeks to seek help in trying to get through to the new Tax Credit helpline, to make sure that vital family support payments are maintained. We have done our best to get results, but governments and new computer systems simply don’t seem to mix. Unfortunately it is the vulnerable that are hardest hit.

Don’t get me wrong - I am no Luddite. I am tapping this out on my laptop and will be sending it electronically to the newspaper. But while many of our technological advances in recent years are truly breathtaking, others are less impressive. Have you ever tried to make an appointment with someone who uses a computerised diary system, either on a desk, or worst of all in a palm pilot? I simply flip my good old trusty diary open to the right page and wait, and then wait some more while the person I am so keen to see prods and bleeps and taps and then swears, eventually locating the right electronic file.

The frustrating encounters with robots that many of us have shared stands in stark contrast to the recent call I made to buy a new grass cutter from an advert in the paper. It was a well-established Devon and Cornwall firm of agricultural retailers, some would even say old-fashioned. A human being answered the phone, knew instantly the machine I was talking about, asked me some questions just to make sure this was the right machine for my needs, agreed to deliver it free and take a cheque on arrival. They turned up when they said they would, and it works a treat. I salute them.

In the meantime, those to whom my call is so important still won’t pick up the phone. It is not so much about technology; it is about customer service.
They call it progress. What do you call it?

posted by Nigel on Monday, May 12, 2003