Customer service becoming a lost art 

   Last year, about this time of year I said  I was very concerned with the way businesses are trending, especially large businesses and governments. In days gone by, every business, organization and level of government at least made an attempt at personalized customer service. It has gotten worse.

   If you go to a bank branch, for example, you can get some semblance of local customer service, but for some services such as credit card information or commercial banking, it’s all online. When it works, it’s okay, but when it doesn’t, it’s awful. A year ago I was struggling to get a simple change over of access for a bookkeeper for an organization. They tell you to go to the web site, log-in and if that doesn’t work, click for a new pass code and all will be well. I went through a dozen or more pass codes before I got a solution.

• Internet providers are similar. We have had email issues and we have been told it’s because of a faulty computer or it’s because we use Apple computers, it’s because Apple won’t talk to some email programs. Then they say, we have been blocked but they don’t know why. It turned out that Apple computers weren’t the issue, customer service was.

• Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) were recently evaluated and it was found that a very high percentage of their answers to taxpayers questions were incorrect. How can that be? Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Many years ago a CRA auditor came out to my farm and said that interest on a farm loan wasn’t a tax deductible expense. Fortunately, a letter from my accountant straightened that out, but it was frustrating.

I suspect today’s problems with CRA may be due to so many of their staff working from home or remotely. There’s little opportunity to stick your head into the next office and say “Hey Josie, what’s the right answer to question B?” If a staffer is labouring away all day without peer consultation, there’s more room for error.

• Phone companies can be frustrating too. It took dozens of calls to get a simple change to a couple of our company phone lines. Each time the customer service rep on the other end of the line was apologetic and admitted that it shouldn’t be complicated. However, it was complicated because whoever they referred a question to didn’t make the required changes. I even had no phone service for a few days which was a bit annoying. 

• I believe that our customer service philosophy is pretty clear. Our staff hopefully always answer the phone and with the approach that if they don’t have the answer, they will do their best to find the answer. 

• Looking at local municipal and town councils, it’s safe to say they have a tough job and it has gotten tougher in recent years. I was on council twice but that was over 12 years ago. Council work has gotten more complicated for certain.

   I think councils and staff could make things easier for themselves with a few changes. Technology allows for an exchange of information much simpler than in the past. Councillors, taxpayers and news media need to be able to see the agendas earlier. Most councils only prepare a very simple paper copy agenda that contains very little information. A few municipalities prepare an electronic agenda package for staff and councillors. Documents can be accessed very easily as the document links  are embedded in the electronic agenda that is on the municipal web site. That’s how it should be. 

   If material is going to be discussed in an open council meeting, then staff, councillors, ratepayers and media should have access to it. In an electronic agenda with the document links embedded in it, access is very good for everybody.

   If municipalities and towns could all achieve that level of transparency and ease of access, voters would be better able to know what is happening. Maybe if more people had access to more information, it might be easier to get people to want to run for council.

   Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being the view of the newspaper staff.