Monthly Archive for May, 2006

I was only today discussing, with a fairly technological inexperienced customer I might add, the benefits of e-mail and other technologies such as Instant Messaging and SMS. They agreed with me that unlike a telephone call which interrupts what you are doing, an e-mail, IM or SMS is really "non-intrusive". If you are disciplined (and wow, I see so many people who’s e-mail and SMS rules them!) then such a message doesn’t scream out "DEAL WITH ME NOW!" like the telephone. In other words, ideal for non-urgent queries.

Most of my larger customers use e-mail, IM and SMS as a matter of course. They e-mail, MSN or text me when they want something looked at, "whenever you have time". It’s convenient for them, it doesn’t interrupt me – we’re both happy.

So I’ve been considering recently during my trials and tribulations with buying a new house, and the fact that my Solicitor, the Vendors Solicitor and everyone in between seem unable to embrace modern culture (why send an e-mail or make a telephone call for an almost immediate response when sending a letter with a wax seal can achieve the same results in almost 3 weeks as slow a time?) just how e-mail can make our lives easier… or more frustrating.

The Solicitor thing is a blog for another time, but I submit the following e-mail conversation between myself and a huge HUGE credit card company who I e-mailed to ask a very simple question "When are you going to make my credit cards more secure"…

I’m a <insert company name> Mastercard Platinum card holder.

I was wondering when your company were going to join the "Mastercard
SecureCode" scheme to make on-line shopping more secure for me.

Other Mastercard companies have already joined. Is there a schedule for
your company?

Regards,

Richard Tubb.

—

Thank you for your recent email regarding your account.

Name:
Address:
Telephone number:

For security purposes, please do not include your Account number or any
other personal or Account information in your email.

—-

Dear Customer Services,

My details – as requested.

Regards,

Richard Tubb

Thank you for your recent email regarding your account.

Yours sincerely,

<company name> Customer Service Team

<company name> Services Limited, Registered in England and Wales.
Registration Number xxx. Registered Office: xxx, London, xxx xxx
"

Now if this was a query regarding anything financial, I’d realise why they wanted me to ‘phone. Security Security Security.

But it’s not. It’s a query asking them a question about their services.

What’s more, they could have replied the first time around and told me to telephone – but they didn’t, they asked me for more details.

So my response was:-

"Hi Arlene,

Thankyou for your response – but is it not possible to answer a non-urgent query such as this via e-mail rather than asking me to make a ‘phone call to state the same request?

Regards,

Richard Tubb. "

Can you imagine the response if you strolled into your local Greengrocers and asked if they had any lemons in stock and being told to submit your request in writing to get an answer?

If this was one company – I’d just move my custom away from them. But I’ve had this same sort of response from at least 2 other companies I’ve dealt with recently – both huge corporations.