If they want our business, banks should get rid of ‘tech fascism’ and remember human touch
I ENDORSE the views of your correspondent Eimear McGuinness (‘Machines have taken the place of people’, Letters, September 14) regarding the withdrawal of almost all human contact from the banking experience. However, I feel this is but a symptom of a much bigger problem.
There was a time when a short phone call would sort out any problem one might have with goods or services from either the public or private sectors. It was the procedure to answer the phone.
Today we have all experienced the horror of electronic switchboards where one is led through several menus where one has to choose option one, two, three or four. One is placed on hold listening alternatively to awful music and solicitations to buy even more of the goods/ services one is on hold trying to secure having already paid for them. One gets the distinct impression they are hoping you will give up and go away.
Eventually you end up talking to an agent in a distant land with a poor command of English. If you are talking to a technology company (TV, internet, phone, etc) they will do all in their power to avoid doing what would have been done in the old days – send out a technician. Despite your age or unfamiliarity with technology, they will insist that you “troubleshoot”. You will follow instructions over the phone and then be told to right click on something. When you tell them it does not appear on your screen they will not believe you until you slowly read out all that is on your screen. Then they unapologetically tell you to “go out of that” and proceed to lead you down another blind alley.
I have often had my nerves shredded by more than an hour of such codology. I call this tech fascism.
All such firms operate in this way despite being in fierce competition with one another.
My question is why none of them stands apart from the pack and compete on the basis of quality of service provided? One suspects such a move would yield rich dividends. Sean O Donnell
Monkstown, Co Dublin