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?

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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.