Are you still using COVID-19 as an excuse? Bad show...time to stop and take action
Let’s face it – Covid-19 is old hat. It’s been around for a year now. Still, we find ourselves facing lapses in conducting business and providing our customers with the service they demand and deserve because of, wait for it, Covid-19. Covid-19 has been harsh on almost everybody – even the wealthiest companies had to cut bonuses, hold promotions and ask their employees to take pay cuts. The little guy stood no chance – it was literally ‘keep your head up, swim for dear life and hope that you don’t sink in the tsunami’. All this turmoil swept through the globe and our country from March 2020 onwards. We are in early 2021 now. Surely six to nine months of strategizing, planning, learning and trials (with error) is sufficient to at least reach a functional level on par with pre-Covid-19 times?
Recently, I had to call the card centre of a major bank that recently celebrated turning forty. My family has been with this bank for over 25 years and I am the second generation to have accounts and dealings with it. The issue I was calling over was not serious, but not trivial either – I had not received my credit card e-statement and thus didn’t know the exact amount I would need to pay by the deadline, to settle it in full. This was important for me, as I have never missed or short-settled a credit card payment in my nearly ten years of holding a credit card. Their recently overhauled mobile app was not showing the statement either, so the card centre was my next option. I am one of those people who don’t usuallycall a card centre if I can achieve the same outcome by myself, or via the mobile app.
Calling their card centre over the course of two days and eight calls at various times (early morning, afternoon, evening, late night), I never got to an agent. My average time on the line was between 10 and 12 minutes, listening to their endless music, punctuated by the perfunctory ‘all our agents are busy…’ spiel. Finally, I got fed-up, and used a connection at the bank to contact someone at the card centre. I inquired as to why the call centre was so unresponsive and the contact told me they were understaffed due to the Covid-19 situation. Fair enough. But what if it had been an emergency? For example, if you lose your credit card or it gets stolen, the first thing you do is call the call centre and ask them to block the card, lest the thief go on a spending spree – especially that Banks are very generous with their credit limits now, no doubt to boost spending and thus, their commissions. Imagine if the call centre for this very purpose is not reachable?It made me question whether I should keep this card or cancel it.
Surely, the Bank didn’t get hit by Covid-19 recently? No, it got hit at the exact time everyone else did. So why haven’t they got their call centre operations under control? I cannot speculate as to the reasons but I can say, citing Covid-19 as a reason for poor service is simply unacceptable in 2021. This is the New Normal, and if you don’t adapt to it, you will lose customers, especially if your competitors are offering a better proposition. Instead, find ways to address the lapses in customer service whilst striking that balance between achieving optimal productivity without overworking your employees – yes, that is happening too, but that’s another article entirely.
This factor is extremely prudent to consider in Hospitality - where the customer experience hinges on service. No matter how exceptional your product is, if it is not delivered to the customer in a satisfactory manner at least, he or she will feel short-changed and disappointed. Touting out the ‘Covid-19’ excuse will no longer fly. In fact, the customer may query as to why your organisation is unable to come up with a viable strategy, given that Covid is oh-so-2020 now.
Finally, bear in mind that if your employees are disgruntled - as a result of being overworked, pay docked and otherwise harassed, while the higher-ups seem to be doing fine, they will bad-mouth your organisation to the customer in response to the complaint – once again damaging your brand whilst drumming up sympathy for themselves.
Ashraaq Wahab – Technical Director, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Automotive Journalist, Marketer and Writer, who enjoys penning his thoughts on a variety of topics.
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