"Your call is important to us" & "Our colleagues are here to help"...

I hope you haven't come here looking for news. There is no news. On account of the fact that I've been on the phone most of the week.

On a peak day I managed five calls to Lloyds Bank, two to Land Registry, one to Land Charges. Some days I call the solicitors but that's like Groundhog Day as all they do is tell me it's the Bank's problem but without then suggesting how they themselves might intervene to shake the Bank's trees.

I am not exaggerating when I say that over the last two weeks I have spent more than twenty hours on the phone. And that doesn't include waiting time, which probably accounts for another five.

It has been a truly Kafkaesque experience. I blame the management consultants who persuaded banks that automation, centralised processing and call centres was the most efficient way to deliver service.

Here's a few I recorded earlier

Call number 3 (though 4, 5, 6 and 7 were similar)

Me: Hello, I'm dealing with an ongoing issue, can I give you the reference number (read reference number)

Brad/Dana/Veronica/Laura/Liam/Stuart/Kaydee/Hussain or one of the fifteen people I've dealt with (let's stick with Brad): Could you give me the mortage number

Me: It's not about a mortgage.

Brad: But this is the charge release team

Me: I know, it's about a charge release. (Go on to tell the story from needle to thread AGAIN)

Brad: I'm reading back through the notes and this was resolved, we sent a letter to your mum on 25th May

Me: No, that didn't resolve it. If you read on, the bank needs to fill in a form K22

Brad: I've never heard of a K22

Me: Well, that's what Land Charges told me. They need you to fill in a K22

Brad: I'll need to contact our processing team

Me: Could you put me through?

Brad: No, they don't take calls

Me: Well how do you contact them?

Brad: Email

Me: Why don't I email them direct

Brad: They don't take incoming emails from customers.

Me: This is getting ridiculous, I'm going round and round in circles, please could I speak to a manager

Brad: I can put a request in to speak to a manager.

Me: Why can't you just find one

Brad: That's not how it works. A manager will call you back in 72 hours

Me: That's not good enough. Please go and find me a manager

Brad: I can't do that

Me: Why not

Brad: It doesn't work like that and any way I'm working from home

Call number 11 - we are still going round in circles

I now have a manager called Pauline who is really trying to help me get this sorted but she, too, is running into problems.

Me: Pauline, we're getting nowhere. I think we need to escalate this. Could I speak to your manager

Pauline: I'm not allowed to do that. I'm the manager responsible now.

Me. Pauline, I love you, but let's be honest, it's not working. Find me someone more senior.

Pauline: I can't do that

Me: Yes, you can.

Pauline: I have taken all the details and will pass them on again to the processing team

Me: I repeat, that's getting us nowhere. Who is the person in charge of your team? Who is the most senior person in the building?

Pauline: I can't tell you that

Me: But you work in customer service. How can a customer service department not be willing to give out the name of the person in charge

Pauline: Would you like to raise a complaint?

Me: Would that get the issue resolved quicker?

Pauline: No but someone would look into the complaint.

Me: I don't want my complaint looking into I want my issue to be resolved. Let me ask again, who is in charge? Who is the most senior person there?

Pauline: Silence

Cue me going absolutely crazy about the ridiculousness of this situation.

Me (loudly): WHO IS IN CHARGE. THERE MUST BE SOMEONE WHO IS IN CHARGE

Pauline (sotto voce): Well ... you know that letter we sent to your mum .... it's signed.

VICTORY. I feel TRIUMPHANT. There he is, named on the letter, let's call him DT.

Beyond the Call Centre

So now my challenge is to locate DT and get through to him. Subterfuge is required as no call centre operative worth their salt is going to put me through to him.

I decide on a twin pronged attack

Counter Offensive One - Head to the Top

I go online to find out who is really in charge. A woman, let's call her JO, is on the Board with the title Chief Executive Officer for Customer Relations. I guess at her email address, which is quite easy and send her an email.

I also go onto LinkedIn and request a connection.

This proves fruitless. JO is too busy Chiefing or Officing to be speaking to any actual customers. I am disappointed but not undone.

Counter Offensive Two - Go for a Direct Hit

I need a telephone number that isn't a call centre. Wrack my brains and I have it! The Lloyds Banking Group Head Office.

I try it, get through to a person on a switchboard. Here we go! I'm in business

Me: Hello, could I speak to JO?

Switchboard: I can't see anyone here listed by that name

Me: She's your CEO for Customer Relations

Switchboard: Well she's not in the directory.

Me: How can the CEO for Customer Relations not have a phone number? What about DT? He's the Head of XXX Team

Switchboard: Oh, he's here. I have a mobile number for him.

ANOTHER VICTORY. I'M SMASHING IT

Resolution

Yesterday, about 8 weeks after finding out that some old charges had wrongly been left on the title deeds of the property, we finally learnt that they'd been removed. The good old K22 was located, signed and duly processed.

It was a complicated situation but entirely solvable once a person with a brain, an understanding of the whole process and the desire to fix it was prepared to get stuck in to help. DT made it happen but not before I went through weeks, days and hours of stress, frustration and misery.

In other circumstances I'm pretty sure my mum would have lost the sale of her house, along with her sanity.

There is absolutely no wonder that productivity levels are so low when we've created a system designed to prevent anyone from seeing the big picture and taking accountability for solving problems

Plain Lies and Falsehoods

My favourite phrases unpicked:

This call may be recorded for quality and training purposes

I sincerely hope this isn't true. Most of my calls failed to resolve my ongoing issue and I would hate to think that anyone was using them as a learning experience.

Your call is important to us

Clearly not

We are experiencing extremely high call volumes

That's because you never resolve a problem first time round.

Our colleagues are here to help. Please treat our colleagues with respect. Offensive language will not be tolerated

Customers are clearly soooooooo pissed off with the service that this opening line has to be included in the recorded message before you're allowed to speak to a real person. I have to admit I did swear at them a few times.

Do you know that most questions can be answered online?

Do you think I would be going through the trauma of this experience if that were true? Morons.

Closure

Closure: n. "any interaction, information, or practice that allows a person to feel that a traumatic, upsetting, or confusing life event has been resolved."

JO still hasn't replied to my email, DT sent me a lovely text saying sorry and then went back into hiding (wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't removed his mobile number from the directory!), Pauline had the pleasure of actually calling me to say the problem had been resolved.

I haven't heard from the complaint team yet so I can't tell you how they're getting on dealing with my complaint.

So this, my friends, is me taking the opportunity to pour my heart out to all of you in the hope that I will achieve the closure I need and be able to move on to the real news.

I may also be able to get back to work finding people jobs.

Summer Fashion Advice

Just bought myself a pair of these Suicoke sandals. I think I told you about them last year but you weren't listening so I'm telling you again. Last year's were black and I got a size 4 which was slightly too small but I spent the whole summer in denial about that and just tried to curl my toes a little bit. That didn't work particularly well so this time I've gone for a 5.

I'm reading and listening to: Trust by Hernan Diaz. Deb recommended it. Loving it. Won the Pulitzer.

I'm watching: Little Dorritt. A very old BBC version with Matthew McFadden, Claire Foy, Pete Postlethwaite, Ruth Jones and plenty of other venerable actors. It is particularly apt because it's in this novel that Dickens introduces us to the Circumlocution office which ridicules governmental bureaucracy, where business is delayed by passing through the hands of different officials.

Most Customer Service centres, it would seem, are modelled on the principles of the Circumlocution office.

I'm learning: To speak Spanish.

Adios. Feliz viernes.

LATE ADDITION - THE NEWS

Good news: He's gone.

Bad news: His legacy lives on

More bad news: I fear he'll be back.