(09 Apr 2017, 7:09 am)Dan wrote A discussion regarding Customer Services has been absorbed into a discussion on another part of the board. Adrian moved these posts here yesterday, for anyone who may have assumed they'd been deleted.

As I feel that that the two topics aren't related, I thought it best to reply in the thread we have set up to discuss dealings with Customer Services within this industry.



Andreos1 - may I ask how long it has been since you initially logged your complaint with Go North East?

Has the company failed to respond, or is there a possibility that the company is still investigating your complaint? The last time I submitted an e-mail of complaint to Go North East's Customer Services Department, I received an automated response, as follows:


I noticed you made a post here regarding generic e-mail acknowledgements. Whenever I send an e-mail to someone with their 'out of office' enabled, I receive an e-mail back almost immediately (and indeed if it's someone within my organisation, I can read their out of office whilst I am composing my e-mail!) Did this not happen for you?

When submitting e-mails of complaint to organisations, I do like to receive an automated e-mail response to confirm that the organisation has received the e-mail. I also like it when a member of staff from the company responds afterwards, confirming that the incident is being investigated, with some feedback from a member of staff at a later date after the complaint has been investigated.

You say yourself that it was a 'serious complaint' - presumably one which would require investigation. CCTV would have to be downloaded, the bus' telematics system data would have to be analysed... Did you fill out the feedback form provided in the link on the automated e-mail response?

You touched on a point yesterday about my line of work. Without going in to the nitty gritty, I work with a number of organisations (some at a pretty high level) and do a range of things within them.
As an example, I could work with a firm and develop their customer service strategy. Working on an existing process and improving it as we see fit. Obviously we would look at case studies, models, theory, statistical evidence  and anything else relevant, before completing the process.
One important factor with customer service is communication. There is also a need for transparency.

As an example, a personal  issue with an organisation has just been resolved. It took an awfully long time, but we got there once the organisation identified there had been a lack of ownership, lack of communication and lack of transparency.
Once that person took ownership of the dispute, there was a modal change in something that had dragged on for far longer than it should have done. A telephone call to introduce himself, was followed by regular telephone updates (he had asked me if I wanted these updates and if so, by what method) and then a final summary, before confirming the outcome in writing. There was a formal apology and an offer of financial recompense.

I’m not saying that the operator in this case should go to those extremes (there has been no material loss in this example – mainly down to luck!), but the behaviour by the organisation above, was in my opinion exemplary towards the end of the process.

What we have here, is an operator clearly complicating the process (by asking for the same information via survey monkey, despite already having it), a total lack of ownership, absolutely no communication and no transparency at all. Despite it being 11 days since the initial communication was started by myself.
I know data and cctv will need checking. I know the driver (and any witnesses) may need to be spoken to.  Unfortunately, I don't have that knowledge because the operator provided me with it.