The world has become very focused on quality of recent times. Local produce is available everywhere and there is a real push on recycling and giving back to the community. How come that the success of these initiatives does not translate into better customer service? During the last couple of years, many businesses and individuals have suffered reversals of fortune and a number of large organisations have decided that they don’t need to treat people with respect anymore. Now is the era of the snotty debt collector, the power crazed bureaucrat at the finance company and the shirking of responsibility for your own service.

If any of these seem harsh judgement, then look around, it’s everywhere. Banks would rather bankrupt someone than wait round for full payment, just to get their deposit ratios back up. Large organisations have offshored so much of their back office that the law of the land does not seem to apply to them anymore.

My own experience of this was a real shocker. An ex neighbour had accrued a significant utility usage. Over a year after his departure, the mega-corp in question discovered that they had a large meter reading and no name to match the debt against, so they chose mine. My personal data was handed over to a debt collection company who started to telephone, email and send letters. They were asked for proof of the debt and couldn’t find any. Rather the supplier trying to work out who did owe their bill, they passed it onto another company, then another and so on. The outcome was that the last debt chaser is now under notice of criminal and civil proceedings, the phone has been quiet since.

Come the upturn when we decide which deals to take and who to contract with, do you think any of this will be relevant? Certainly, I know who I WON’T be shopping with and that is down to short termism and pure laziness of some of the biggest corporate bodies. If you cannot learn anything about customer service, don’t expect to see any customers.