Journal of my Service Related Experiences

Greetings:

As members of an active population, we all encounter greetings hundred times a day, whether it is while buying coffee, shopping for food or having a hair-cut, or simply meeting someone in the elevator.

Greetings happens in everyday life and I have a personal experience to relate here; Sunday late morning I was walking the dogs with my Daughter in Ross Creek and met on a narrow forest path, Mike and Marge, the football trainer and his assistant that used to train my son's year at Roselyn Wakari  Football Club.  Marge said "How are You?" and with our recent history in mind, I responded "very well and you?" just to realise that she was long gone....

Lyle

Lyle and his ISP

1.    What would you do first to help Lyle?

2.   What steps could you take to make sure this problem doesn't happen again?

Now let’s consider where you work...

c)       Company guidelines on customer help/support/contingencies/staff – a series of bullet points is probably the best way of formatting this section.

3.  What are your company's or agency's guidelines on allowing customer service people to help customers, even if the solution goes against policy?

4.   With whom would you talk if you had a question about a company policy that upsets customer?

 ________________________________________________________________________________

1- Given that I had already asked the accounting department about it and received a clear answer that company policy stands, I would now approach my boss, strongly arguing that it is our company’s mistake to begin with.  Then, I would say that this is a very special case not so much from the point of view of the customer being my friend but more from the human side.  Indeed, Lyle is now running the risk of being evicted from his flat as a result of his check bouncing.  Additionally, his credit rating has suffered because of his account being overdrawn, making it difficult for him to get future loans, mortgages or any other sort of financing from his bank.  It is our company’s duty to look after our clients, not cause them trouble like what happened to Lyle.  We must use our special contingency fund to reimburse the customer quickly.

2- I would alert management that this company policy of late returning of overpayment is in fact illegal and urge the company to review this policy.  We work for an Internet Provider, a company at the forefront of technological development; we must be able to speed up internal financial flows.

I would suggest two solutions:

-Decentralization: head office is 1500km away and the checks need to be written there, with regional centers able to make financial decisions independently of head-Office.

-Scrapping checks all together, it is old financial tools and we should introduce and implement internet banking and direct financial transfers via the internet.

That would solve this problem and would also avoid it ever happens again.

3- The company guidelines are strict, payment happens two, three weeks after overpayment has occurred. This might not be legal in certain western societies where the customer has rights and corporates have obligations which in this case, would lead to compensation.

4. I would talk with my boss, it is his/her responsibility to negotiate any changes to company policy.

I was born in Stockholm in 1961 and started my schooling there.
A large part of my family emigrated to France when I was 8 giving me
the opportunity to learn the language and spend some important years
of my upbringing in France and Switzerland. I passed my IB in 1981
in Geneva and spend the following two years in England to initially
improve my level of English and later study at a London Business School
and get a Diploma.
Professionally, I started working in 1984 In Stockholm at a
construction company for a year and then entered the banking world
first at SEB, a Swedish bank were I stayed 7 years, 5 in Stockholm
and 2 in London. 3 years with Tokai Bank also in London was followed
by 7 years in self-employment and 3 years in a Sports hospitality
company.
Since early days in London, I have been married to Stephanie and since
1997 a parent first to Anna and then two years later to John. We
moved to New Zealand in 2010 and turned a new chapter our lives, my
children in good schools, my wife and myself Studying at VIC and
Otago Polytechnic respectively.
My aim is to achieve a career change and become proficient in an
industry of the future.