I feel like I've had my fair share of bad appalling customer service over the past few months and years. Maybe I'm getting grouchier? Is it just me? Do I expect too much? Or is the standard of customer service across the board nowadays so poor as to be effectively non-existent?
Just last month I had the pleasure of spending over an hour in the company of Andrew on the Transport for London Oystercard Helpdesk and numerous, mostly nameless voices at the Barclaycard OnePulse Oystercard Helpdesk. Actually, Helpdesk seems to me to be quite the perfect Orwellian Newspeak to use in order to adequately describe the full range of available help that these services offer to hapless customers like me. Helpdesk! Helpdesk! The more you say it and look at it, the more it resembles some kind of East European dyslexic Helpdesk! Hledpeski.
Where was I? That's right, I was stuck in the middle of nowhere (well, White City) with a Barclaycard OnePulse Oystercard that didn't work. I'd already had a friendly discussion with Daniel at Ealing Broadway Ticket Desk who assured me that he worked for Network Rail and therefore he was unable to help me with my season ticket even though it is valid on Network Rail. According to Daniel, I would have to travel to a London Underground station in order to do anything about my OnePulse card. I thought Ealing Broadway is a London Underground station? Could I speak to the manager? Why should I have to buy another ticket when I have a valid ticket already (verifiable online)? Daniel couldn't help me with any of these questions, but simply referred me to the ticket guards who informed me that my card didn't work - I already knew this, of course - and I should go to the ticket desk.
So, back to White City. The chap on the Helpdesk here couldn't help me either, although I did persuade him to vote for me should I ever stand for election with the manifesto to redistribute half of the wealth of the richest 5% of the population equally among the rest of us thereby making us all 50% better off (albeit at the risk of losing some rich people to permanent overseas residency) and providing free public transport. He told me to phone Transport for London. Hello Andrew.
Andrew - sounding plausibly like Scottish sports broadcaster Dougie Donnelly - was authoritatively reassuring. I explained that I wanted to transfer my season ticket from my now inoperable OnePulse card to my regular Oystercard, which I carry with me as a backup. This shouldn't be too difficult surely? After all, they are both registered to me at my online Oyster account. I'm sure I could transfer my season ticket myself when I got home. But I can't get home until I've transferred it. Why should I buy another ticket when I already have one? Dougie, I mean Andrew, said that unfortunately it wasn't possible to transfer my season ticket from my OnePulse to my Oystercard. OnePulse and Oyster use different systems and in any case he could only attempt such a transaction if I had lost my OnePulse card. Damn! I hadn't lost it as it was in my hand as we spoke! But, it's as good as lost!, I offered, hopefully. Sorry, no can do. Oops! There, I lost it! Now can you do it? No, I would have to register it as lost with Barclaycard. Bizarrely, he then offered to try anyway, to no effect.
He transferred me to Barclaycard. I spent a further hour on the phone to at least four of their "operatives". I suspect that they are computer generated voices a bit like those ones you get to activate a new credit card. The first one said I couldn't register my card as lost because it had been put "on hold". He transferred me to the fraud prevention department (FPD). They wern't there, and apparently could not take a message to call me back because they can't make outside calls, and after several failed attempts somehow I was put through to the London Ambulance Service.
Try again. By now I was determined to see this through, whatever happened. I had to give all my personal details once again and explain my story at least twice more to each person I spoke to.
My oystercard doesn't work. It has my season ticket on it. I want to transfer it to my other oystercard which does work. While you're at it, cancel my Barclaycard because it's rubbish.The FPD told me there was no "hold" on my card and, yes, they could make outside calls. They transferred me back to customer service who registered my card as lost. Finally! No, I did not want a new one!. Yes, I was sure about that!!
I got back to Andrew right away. Triumphantly, as if Scotland were beating the Faroe Islands, he told me that although I had now registered my card as lost he still could not transfer my season ticket as I had to wait to receive my new Barclaycard.
When I got home I transferred my season ticket online.
At least it's not just me.
