The Art of Defending the Indefensible
Anyone in either a position of responsibility or the face of the customer often has to defend policies that they may not agree with. I felt I had to share this one because of it’s great lack of ownership or ability to question the insane.
| Helpdesk | Hi, my name is D[hiss,crunch], how can I help? |
|---|---|
| Tim | Hi, I currently have a mail redirection service and I haven’t received any redirected mail recently. |
| Helpdesk | How do you know there is missing mail? |
| Tim | I have a weekly subscription to New Scientist, I haven’t changed the address on the subscription and haven’t seen it for weeks. |
| Helpdesk | Are you in possession of any missing mail? |
| Tim | No, I moved out of my old address and no longer have access in order to check whether mail is incorrectly being delivered. |
| Helpdesk | Without proof of incorrectly delivered mail we can’t process a complaint. |
| Tim | So unless someone who uses mail redirection has either access to their previous address or relies on the new occupant to inform me when they incorrectly receive post, there is no way lodge a complaint? |
| Helpdesk | Without proof of incorrectly delivered mail we can’t process a complaint. |
| [Extended questioning of the above] | |
| Tim | Can I have the telephone number of the watchdog that oversees the postal service? |
| Helpdesk | Why? |
| Tim | I do not belive the level of service for postal redirection is satisfactory. |
| Helpdesk | The watchdog will not be able to process your complaint without a reference number. |
| Tim | OK, can you give me the reference number of this complaint? |
| Helpdesk | We need proof of incorrectly delivered mail to issue a reference number. |
| Tim | Can I get the telephone number anyway? |
| Helpdesk | The number is 0800 NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. To remind you, they will not be able to assist you without a reference number. |
| Tim | I’ll give it a try anyway, can I get your name? |
| Helpdesk | I gave you my name at the start of this conversation, I am not required by law to give it to you again. |
I’m sure there are many reasons that someone in the know could share as to why such a rule was put in place but the conversation above followed another one I had of similar nature:
| Helpdesk | Hi, how can I help? |
|---|---|
| Tim | Hi, I currently have a mail redirection service and I haven’t received any redirected mail recently. |
| Helpdesk | No problem, what is your address? |
| Tim | XYZ |
| Helpdesk | No problem, I’ll contact the sorting office, things should improve from here. Your reference number for this call is… |
Apparently by default the sorting office do a bad job, it’s only when they get reminded to improve that things really go smoothly. Either way, I quickly changed address on anything I could think of and never received another piece of redirected mail. However, the new occupant of my old address may not have been so lucky.