Not Making the Most of Now
Published on 20th September, 2007 by Stephen Lewis
It’s human nature to want an easy life. Evolutionary instinct dictates that we should save our energy for the big fights. The same principle holds true for business, where the basic survival instinct is compounded by the need to generate a profit.
Such primal motivators don’t always consider the bigger picture, though – what’s good for a business in the short term may be very damaging in the long term.
Killing Time with Vodafone
A few days ago, Vodafone provided me with a perfect example of what happens when a company chooses the easy life over the bigger picture.
After much research (some would call it faffing), I made the decision to sign up for Vodafone’s mobile broadband service. Due to the thoroughness of my research (ahem), I no longer had time to place my order online, and needed to pop into the Vodafone shop in town to make the purchase. Not a problem, a quick phone call to confirm that the item was in stock, and I’d be good to go.
What followed was over four hours of frustration and unnecessary complication. Here are the lowlights.
- After some concerted hunting through the Vodafone site, and various online directories, it became apparent that Vodafone (a telecommunications company) do not advertise the telephone number of their local stores. Instead, everyone is directed to a premium-rate call-centre.
- Five minutes of premium-rate multiple-choice questions and hold music later, and I finally encountered a human being. I requested the number for my local Vodafone store, and was informed by a very weary-sounding call-centre operative that he was not at liberty to divulge such classified information. “I don’t know why,” he confessed “it’s stupid.”
- I regrouped, and instead requested that he transfer me to my local store (presumably still at the premium-rate). Apparently this isn’t allowed either. However, it was permissible for my call-centre buddy to phone my local branch of Vodafone, and ask them questions on my behalf.
- My call-centre chum, Mark, was clearly embarrassed by the lunacy of the situation, and apologised profusely before putting me on hold. A few minutes later he returned, and informed me that he couldn’t get through. My only available recourse was to call back later (on the premium-rate number), negotiate further multiple-choice perils, and have a similarly ludicrous conversation with another long-suffering call-centre operative.
I got in the car and drove to the shop instead. Things went downhill a bit from this point on, but I’m too weary to go into the details. Consider it a survival instinct, dictating that I should save my energy for the blog posts worth writing.
As for why Vodafone have decided to implement such a customer-unfriendly policy, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that it is motivated by some very sound financial survival instincts.
Unfortunately, the decision-makers at Vodafone seem to have forgotten that making your customers happy is the only fight worth fighting.
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