Change and Challenge 189brings you no nearer to understanding, nor does it help
solve the problem.
My experience in ordering from a computer company
made me think about blame from a customer’s point of view.
My computer keyboard was becoming more and more unreli-
able and was clearly on its last legs. I ordered a new one from
a telephone order company, but it was faulty, so I telephoned
customer service to get a replacement as soon as possible. I
was in a hurry – I had several urgent reports to research.
The customer service representative who took the call was
not allowed to authorize a replacement without an order
number, so he said he would ask his supervisor to deal with
the query, but the supervisor was on another call, would I
like to hold? Definitely not. I rang off with the promise that
the supervisor would call back very soon. The supervisor did
not call back that day and I was annoyed. So I telephoned
the next day and told them forcibly that their service left a
lot to be desired. The customer service agent who answered
must have had a bad day, because he was rude and unhelp-
ful; this made me even angrier and we finished shouting at
each other down the telephone.
Five minutes later a supervisor called me back to apolo-
gize and explain that the agent who had taken his call had a
bad cold and was not feeling very well. He said he would au-
thorize a replacement keyboard straightaway, but first the
company needed the faulty keyboard returned to their
warehouse. The supervisor arranged for a special collection
as a way of making amends, but forgot to ask me for the orig-
inal order number. The keyboard was duly collected, but as
there was no order number it did not get checked into the
depot in the usual way.
Three days went by and no keyboard. I telephoned again
to find out what had happened and found that as the com-
pany had no record of receiving the keyboard back, no
replacement had been sent out. I told them in no uncertain
terms that this was their problem and not mine. They could
not find a way out of their self-imposed bind, so I asked for
(and got) a refund and bought a keyboard from another