Customer Services (cont.)

(back into full ranting)

As you might know, one of my pet peeves is poor customer services. It seems like one of those things that ought to easy to get right, but rarely seems in evidence. Here's my latest example.

I used to have my energy supplied by Scottish Power. In fact I still do, just in the process of changing to EDF Energy. Not because I can, supposedly, save about £150 a year, but due to the poor service. What happened was I received an email on 25th January telling me that my energy prices had increased. They were sorry they had to do this, and so on and so on, but they had to increase them. In fact, they *had* increased them on 25th November. Two months earlier. And were telling me. Now.

Okay, so I decided that that wasn't great. I was expecting a price rise, but thought I ought to be informed before it happened, rather than 2 months after. So I replied to this email, asking why there was a 2 month delay in informing the customer. I sent my reply on 26th January, and waited. And waited.

Finally, on 14th February, no, not a Valentine's message, but a response to my query from Scottish Power -

With a price rise we have an allowance of 65 days to notify our customers.  This has been cleared with the regulator, please click the following link for more information:
http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Pages/MoreInformation.aspx?file=65%20day%20rule%20info%20note.pdf&refer=Media/PressRel

If as a result of the recent price increase you wish to change supplier, we offer a service known as the Right to Cancel.  This means that we can honour your original prices up until the date your supplies would transfer aslong as we are notified within 20 days.

(I include the second paragraph only for its oblique obscurity and the use of 'aslong' - nice)

So, they were complying with the law by waiting 2 months. That was their legal right. Hang on? Isn't that a bit like going to a restaurant, receiving dreadful service from the waiter, then if you complain being told, "Well, I haven't stabbed you, have I?" I understand what the law might say, but I'd think that customer service, let alone good customer service, should aim for more than simple 'legal compliance'. Hey, here's an idea - what about serving the customer. Satisfying the customer. Hell - let's go crazy - even consider *delighting* them.

So, in my world, I was expecting a price rise. I knew I could probably do better financially by switching, but had no real reason to. Satisfying my expectation would have been being notified of a price raise when it happened. Delighting me would have been switching me automatically to one of their better tariffs (the reality is, I can actually get a cheaper deal by stopping with Scottish Power than I am going to get from EDF Energy, but I am the customer and I've not received good service. There are consequences).

To make this simple:

• Had I received satisfactory service, Scottish Power would be getting about £1000/year from me;
• Had I received delightful service, they would be getting about £850/year from me;
• By giving poor service they get £0/year from me.

Poor service ought to cost. We need to make it so(!)

Okay, there are those who will be thinking, 'no, the big picture for the company is  that they might lost 5% of customers this way, but they will gain some. Overall they are probably up on the deal'. To those I will cite my favourite (or should that be 'east favourite') management incident.


I used to work for a large company where, as is typical, we used pens. They were cheap pens. Probably 5 pence each. We asked for slightly better pens, costing perhaps 15 pence each. These nicer pens did not last three times as long as the cheaper ones - probably just as long in fact. But they wrote better, and were much nicer to use. The management at the time turned done the request for those expensive pens. Truly, they did. Well, they bought probably two thousand pens a year so that's £200 at risk if they'd have gone crazy and listened to their workers.

If you don't see what's completely wrong and self-defeating about such a policy, then you'll not see what's wrong with Scottish Power's policy either. You might possibly be a manager of some sort. 

Not a good one though.