Can sales people let a good marketing campaign down?

Like many people I prepare for the worst when telephoning a company for information. Jobs are so deskilled and compartmentalized there is little chance of getting a complete answer at the first attempt. Then my heart sinks further when I realize I have reached a menu. How many levels will there be? What data will I need to key in? Will there be a relevant option? How long will this take? And how much will it cost? Then increasingly with off shore call centres – will I understand what they say? So it is with considerable trepidation I call BT to progress an order. I had decided to take up their offer to upgrade my broadband account and had returned the order form in the envelope provided in the expectation of order confirmation within a week. Three weeks had now elapsed and no news. Oddly for a telecoms business there was no phone number on the letter, or address, or e-mail – just the web site. That did not yield a number either but it did offer an online option to check order progress. Unfortunately it failed to recognize my information. So after fifteen minutes to reach a dead end I used the sales number on the telephone bill and proceeded through the multi-level menu, entered my phone number and eventually got a ringing tone that somehow died leaving me hanging. I repeated the process and this time got to speak to someone, gave my telephone number, customer number, home address and mother’s maiden name. They concluded I did not exist and offered to transfer me to some other part of the BT empire. After repeating the same information to a succession of people, queuing, listening to Vivaldi, being told how busy they were, it appeared the phone was registered in my wife’s maiden name, even though the bill reflected her married name, slightly misspelled, but near enough to recognize, and this was undoubtably the problem. I was put through to a supervisor to get the name on the account changed and was congratulated on my marriage. I thanked her and pointed out this was in fact a few years ago and could we make the account Mr & Mrs? No that was a step too far, so I settled with it in my wife’s name, possibly correctly spelled. When I got to person number 5 I actually explained I was progressing an order taking up their offer to upgrade my broadband. So far there had been no trace of receipt of this order, but this very helpful lady decided that I was in fact with BT Yahoo, not BT broadband – by the way customers don’t care about internal organization - and offered to set up the phone call and introduce me to the right person. Nearly there then. But hold on, person number 6 opened the conversation by asking if he could help me with anything. I explained the nature of my enquiry which seemed not to strike a chord at all. You already have broadband he volunteered after asking how much I was paying – is there anything else I can help you with. So is there an upgrade deal or not I asked? Apparently not. End of call after 32 minutes – another dead end. Not a great customer experience.

Next morning I have an e-mail sent at 5 am and addressed to my wife, wrong spelling of course, to thank me for my order and confirm delivery date of the equipment.