During the last couple of days I have been away on a course. ‘Being Blue’ is a Thiess programme which is aimed at teaching and aligning your beliefs and ways into that of Thiess’. It is three and half days of bombardment where you network and don’t have any time to stop. Some of the ideas and concepts are pretty interesting – This is where ‘The moment of truth’ comes into play!
I had been informed whilst I was away that my adsl had been connected up. All excited I have rushed back home, pulled out all the wires and manuals raring to go. After ten minutes out come the manuals, after another five I try to dial up manually. And of course there is diddly squat! Absolutely nothing, apart from the token gesture of a dying warble. The incompetent Muppet who connected the adsl up at the exchange has obviously not reconnected everything back up.
I proceed to ring up Telstra and report the fault. You are greeted with one automated message after another and some extremely irritating computerised hold music with intermittent hissing. You try the automated line check, which of course comes back saying there is nothing wrong. Another automated voice then informs you that as the customer you will just have to wait as lots of other customers have decided they have nothing else better to do either. Or better still call back when they can be arsed to answer the phone.
Greeted by a lovely sounding lady who takes all my details and then proceeds to tell me that I should unplug everything and try different phones….. blah, blah blah. Now I assume this is the first point where they try and filter out all the useless prats who have no concept about telephones or computers. In fact it makes you wonder in just how many cases this solves the problem. Another line check is suggested, which I duly agree to as I know the girl hasn’t a clue what she is on about. After all she is just following prompts on a screen. A while passes.
Eventually a voice returns on the line to inform me that I will be transferred to someone who knows what they are talking about. Preceded briefly by a spiel about call out fees etc and wasting peoples time.
Tony answers the phone and I explain the issue to him. Within a couple of seconds he tells me what I knew all along – whoever connected the adsl in the exchange has not connected something back up correctly. It will be fixed within about four days.
So If I had a choice in the matter I’d be getting my phone services somewhere else. All because some Muppet hasn’t done their job properly. The moment of truth!
Companies can lose out in a big way just because of something so trivial and simple.
