Tech advances don’t mean better service

I RECEIVED an email from my mobile phone provider the other day notifying me that my phone contract with them was due to expire soon and that there were several options I could take.

Having viewed the company’s various price plans on offer, I decided I would stay with them, but on a smaller package as I wasn’t using all the data my previous plan provided.

Thinking this would be easy to discuss over the phone, I attempted to call the provider and having jumped through all their hoops I eventually found that there was no option to speak directly with anyone, but instead I was offered a “chat online”.

Wishing to get this off my mind, I proceeded with the online discussion and was promptly placed in a queue.

Twenty minutes later, I eventually got “chatting” to someone which involved me typing out what I wanted to discuss and then waiting for whoever was on the other end to respond.

During these conversations there was some uncertainty about the terms of my new plan, which resulted in the exchange of several typed messages between the two of us, all of which took a lot of time and could have been resolved quite quickly had we been able to talk to one another directly.

All told, I spent nearly an hour sort ing out my new contract.

So, please, could someone explain, how can it be more efficient for someone to “chat” online for nearly 40 minutes for something that could have been sorted out in a fraction of that time by speaking face to face?

It seems the banks are also going this way too. I don’t get it!

Cliff Richard once sang, “it’s so funny, how we don’t talk anymore”.

Well, I tell you what, Cliff, I’m not laughing, because we may be wired for sound but the message isn’t getting through!

Mahesh Patel, Leicester