Lockdown has legitimised bad service and we’re not even meant to complain
A colleague, who has still not been refunded for a flight last April, says that when she mentioned it on social media, users told her she should not make a fuss because we’re in a pandemic
An image is circulating online of a sign in a supermarket window in London. “You must provide an explanation as to why you may die if wearing a mask”, it reads. “Customers playing fast and loose with ours or other’s [sic] lives will not be tolerated.”
Perhaps the supermarket is right to be cautious, given that the virus spreads in enclosed spaces. Like its managers, you might think that many people falsely claim a medical exemption to avoid wearing a mask. But since when did profit-driven businesses, whose survival depends on serving customers and retaining their loyalty, think it was acceptable to speak in this way? In its sublime passive-aggression, it is an extreme example of an unfortunate Covid trend: by legitimising terrible service, lockdown has upended the very logic of the consumer society.
Who do companies think they are serving? John Lewis has announced the suspension of its click and collect operations, not out of any legal obligation or because it has come up with a better way of selling to its customers, but because of a “change in tone” from the Government. When they aren’t rationing entry in bossily-managed queues, meanwhile, the major supermarkets have said that they will assume what is properly the job of the police and challenge people who are not wearing a face covering. A common experience when calling a customer service centre of a large firm to resolve a problem is to be told that, as staff are working remotely, everything is taking longer so please would you be patient. I am meant to accept the fact that post has been arriving weeks late as an inevitable fact of the pandemic.
This is not a complaint about the validity of the Covid control measures I have mentioned, or to lack sympathy for companies that are struggling with staff absences. The majority of smaller firms have also been superb, adapting their models to survive in desperate circumstances. I’m sure that the behaviour of some customers has been dreadful and nothing in the private sector can compare to the disregard for the public embodied by government agencies such as the DVLA.
But it is inescapable that lockdown has sanctioned a culture of excuses and encouraged an inversion of the relationship between consumer and business that may prove hard to shake off. Along with social distancing and face coverings, there is a danger that it will outlast even the end of the pandemic. Look at the airlines, which are now required to subordinate all customer experience to the demands of safety. That may well be appropriate for flying, but who wants to see such an attitude entrenched elsewhere?
Customer service in Britain has never been good. But one of the most surprising aspects of the current phenomenon is the extent to which the public have become participants in the lowering of standards further. A colleague, who has still not been refunded for a flight she was meant to take last April, says that when she complained on social media, she was targeted by users telling her she should not make a fuss because we’re in the middle of a pandemic. But when will we be allowed to make a fuss again? Consumer capitalism doesn’t work unless the customer is king.