And now the end is near…

I finally got a reply from a real person at O2.

Dear Marc,

Thank you for taking the time to email us.

I would like to apologise for the number of emails you have been sent with regards to this query. I am aware that some of these emails have been irrelevant to your original email; I can assure you that I will feed this back to the advisors in question.

As previously stated I would like to thank you for taking time to provide us with Website feedback and will pass this on. We have recently updated our website, I can only apologise if you feel this has not improved matters. We have also received very positive feedback regarding the update from other customers. As you can appreiciate it is hard to satisfy all customers the same, which is why we are glad to hear of areas for improvement.

Should you require, I can arrange for a paper bill to be sent to you free of charge every month. I understand this is not a perfect solution to your problem, I am however, trying to negotiate a ‘happy medium’ with you in an attempt to improve your satisfaction with O2.

Thank you for contacting O2 Online Business Customer Service.

Kind regards,

Gemma White

I can feel that this relationship may be nearing it’s natural end….

Hi Gemma,

Thanks for your offer to send me paper bills; I never had problem getting the bills form the website. I was simply frustrated by the lack of thought that has gone into your site.

You say that you have updated the site. Yes you have updated the front of the site - but a few clicks in and the old site is lurking just beneath the new skin – so functionally nothing has changed.

I suppose I just wanted to achieve a level of ‘real’ dialogue with O2 customer services rather than receiving standard responses.
I have become seriously frustrated with the way in which customer service has become simply a marketing tool, measured by how many emails, complaints and lost calls in call centre queues, rather than a genuine desire by the company to provide a high level of service to your clients.

I run a small company, and we pride ourselves on our ability to respond personally to all of our clients in an individual manner. I think the number of standardized emails (which seem to me to have come from some kind of outsourced support centre in the Indian subcontinent) that went back and forth before you finally wrote a ‘real’ one is indicative of the corporate attitude to service.

I don’t blame you or any of the automatons who reply to customer queries, I think that it’s just the way the corporate world has gone. I do, however, think that there will be a backlash against companies such as yourselves and your business will ultimately suffer.

O2 should be proactive. They have an opportunity to address their poor customer service record and actually start dealing with their customers in the way that your adverts already claim to. O2 need to stop thinking of service as being a number and start thinking of it as being the public face of your business.

All that said, I’m sure someone will now write back to me explaining how to empty my cache or something. And I am certain that this email will never get further than your desk.

Feel free to prove me wrong.

Regards

Marc