COVID-19 should no longer be a Get-out-of-jail card for shoddy service
With organisations under additional pressure due to COVID-19, I anticipated encountering service and supply problems. Whilst businesses struggled to adjust under these extraordinary circumstances, I understood clearly that customer service will fall short of the levels of service that we customers received pre-pandemic. Neither did being told, “Sorry for the inconvenience, but the pandemic…” nor “It’s no longer possible due to COVID-19…” deter or put me off. (I’m sure most of you would have heard phrases like these from customer service engagements during the past months).
Throughout those catastrophic times I remained patient as I also understood that hospitality operators were struggling to find the resources to survive, let alone thrive. However, after nearly twenty two months into the pandemic, my understanding and patience is wearing thin. I am now fed up with service providers continuing to blame shortcomings on the COVID effect. Hospitality businesses clearly need to prioritize customer service above all else - particularly during times when customers are slowly but surely willing to come back.
Recently, I needed to talk to someone at an airline as I had some questions on redeeming my frequent flyer mileage. When I called the loyalty cardholder service number I had to listen to a voice recorded greeting that included “Due to Covid -19 and health guidelines on workplace health and safety, we are operating with minimal staff and wish to apologize for any inconvenience caused…” After that warning, I was able to get to the phone menu starting with the prompt “Welcome to Flysmiles! For service in English, please press ‘1’,”… 40-seconds later and after going through these prompts, I was kept ‘on hold’ (listening to a cyclically repeated insipid instrumental track). Eventually, I rang off in frustration after 8 minutes of waiting to talk to someone.
Next day morning, I called the airline once again, went through the same ordeal and was kept on-hold for 11 minutes before Sid (actual name withheld) answered. Speaking with a heavy accent, Sid soon blurted out that he could not provide me the answers I was seeking, as he was merely helping out the Customer Care Agents (CCA) answer the phones, duh? Sid however promised to have a CCA return my call within the hour – all the time using words such as ‘cool’, ‘no probs’, ‘good to go’, ‘luvly’ – much to my amusement.
Three hours later, and not having received that promised call from the CCA, I rang the airline (third time now), listened to the recorded script and waited ‘on-line’ for 7 minutes before Harshi ((actual name withheld) answered the phone. No sooner, I posed my question; she immediately said exactly what Sid told me three hours earlier. At that point, I was like, 'Okay, this cannot be happening’. Speaking firmly, I informed her of Sid’s broken promise, I politely asked her to connect me to her supervisor. She asked me to be ‘on-hold’, which I did for a further 5 minutes, before she came back to ask me what I wanted to tell the supervisor.
Having endured this symphony of bizarreness on so many levels, my patience ran out as I demanded in no uncertain terms to speak to the supervisor. Saying she would transfer my call to the supervisor, she hastily went off line, keeping me on-hold for another 7 minutes before the supervisor came on line. Keeping my cool and quickly relating my caller experience, I eventually got to asking him my two questions. He apologized before providing the answers – all of this conversation took less than 2 minutes.
Being kept on hold for total 39 minutes may not win the ‘Worst Customer Service Ever’ award, but might merit a mention. Why cannot someone not include a “If you have been kept on hold over XXX minutes, please Press #@ for frustration” prompt to alert that a customer is running into a record phone wait?
I fully understand that the pandemic has caused a perfect storm of customer service issues, with companies and government agencies struggling to cope with staffing problems and customers struggling to keep their cool. But to keep using COVID-19 as the ultimate ‘get-out-of-jail’ card doesn’t feel right.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier
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