dangletech

Last week, members of the family tried to reach my father-in-law, who lives in a city, distant from most other family members. He is over 80 years of age, and survivor of a stroke. Our phone calls were met by continued busy signals, leading us to at first believe that he had inadvertently left a phone off the hook, and then after a day of the busy signals, fearing something worse.
We drove down to see him the next day, and to our pleasant surprise, found him standing in the lobby of his apartment building, chatting with the building superintendent.
When we asked what had happened to his phone, he explained that he had been disputing a portion of his phone bill with his phone company, and that inexplicably, service for his phone had gone dead a couple of days earlier, and he’d been unable to get this restored.
I contacted the phone company via cell phone to understand the situation, and have service restored. Here’s what happened.
Call #1: After a fifteen minute wait, I talked with a customer service representative who informed me that my father-in-law owed some monies going back to May (although there’d been a partial offsetting credit processed in July). As my father-in-law combines internet and phone on the same bill, and makes long-distance calls to far-flung members of the family, the total amount outstanding (including August 2009), was $328.75. I arranged to pay this by credit card (as they refused to accept a cheque to be mailed in by my father-in-law), and was promised that service would be restored within the hour.
I also inquired as to what notification had been provided to my father-in-law regarding phone service at risk of being cut-off. I was told that there was a phone call to him, which was not answered (with no message left); an email to him (which he only accesses when his failing vision permits this), and a letter (which I read, and which nowhere indicated in clear terms that there was any risk of service being discontinued).
Finally, before hanging up, I arranged to have my name and phone number included on the account as contact information, in case a payment or other dispute putting essential phone service at risk, arose in future.
Call #2: After waiting 2.5 hours for phone service to be restored, I called back to inquire when this would occur. After being kept on hold for 10 minutes, I was told that there would be a 24 hour delay. As we were going out and would be leaving my father-in-law alone, this was not acceptable, and given the earlier commitment for service being restored within the hour, I asked to speak to a supervisor. I was told that they were all out. (This was at 2pm on a business day). I then asked to speak with an executive, and was told that they too were out and that I could talk with customer service (not sure who I’d been talking with up until then). I asked if they would be able to restore service within the hour and was told no. I said I’d call back, thanked the individual, and hung up.
Call #3: After another two hours had gone by, I called back. I was put on hold for 20 minutes. I thought to ask several questions: 1. Was I calling a call centre in Canada? (Answer: No. It was in India).
2. Was there anyone at the call centre empowered to expedite restoration of service? (Answer: No). 3. Did they have access to anyone in Canada who could expedite restoration of service? (Answer: No. They had a protocol to follow and regardless of the nature of the need, e.g. emergency or otherwise, they could not short-circuit the process).

I started this message by talking about lessons learned with respect to customer service, market segmentation, common sense, and respect.
Here is some of what I learned:
a. As the world’s population ages, and/or succumbs to debilitating illnesses and accidents, there is a need to re-visit how we communicate and interact with this subset of the marketplace. For example, in the case of my father-in-law, straightforward language, in very large font would have made a tremendous difference in terms of his understanding that phone service was at risk of being cut off.
b. There is a need to do a better job of segmenting the marketplace from an information gathering and servicing perspective. For example, providers of a very broad category of what are, to those in need, essential services, should have a protocol during account set-up which asks politely, if the client would like to have an alternate contact on the account, in case there is an emergency and a need to reach someone live. There should be policies in place, where, by knowing the client’s situation, there are guidelines with respect to considering cutting off service, and at a minimum, a much longer delay in doing so, than might normally apply.
c. This was clearly a non-empowering organization. The balance between reducing operating costs and being able to offer lower priced services to clients is a delicate one. While understanding the need to keep costs low, organizations must have people in place who are empowered to re-act quickly and appropriately to non-standard situations, and act with common sense and good judgement.
d. Finally, this situation creates an opportunity, if organizations think a bit outside the box. There is a rapidly aging market which will be 30+% of the world’s population, according to demographics experts, making this a large potential group to provide tailored services to, that address their needs. I imagine that a phone company that builds its service offerings around the aged would look very different than does my father-in-law’s current provider and capture tremendous market share.

If you have elderly or infirm family members, think about the services that they are receiving, and what would happen, if one of these were to be cut off. It might just be worth a conversation with them and a possible follow-on conversation with their provider, to ensure that you are a point of contact before this ever occurs.
Oh yes, and my father-in-law’s phone service was restored, eight hours after my initial call.