‘Have a nice day now’

In these trying times I suppose you are trying to cut costs. As a consumer guru I can help. There is a very simple solution, modify your call centre. Sack the lot. ‘A little drastic?’ you say. ‘No, not really,’ I reply. They are of no use to you or your very good customers, who pay for an agreed service, but have to jump through hoops in order to get it.

Every time I call I am put through to Miss or Mr Cloth-Ears. Someone with a double barrel name ought to have a modicum of intelligence but no.

I pay £110 every month to budget for cold weather. Remember snow and freezing ice? What did your company do to help? During the coldest spell for yonks, you reduced my payments to £76 per month. How clever is that? Why? I am not a pelican. I certainly don’t want a big bill for my birthday surprise in March. This was despite several conversations with the Cloth-Ears to let me choose how to budget. They always say that it is not their fault it is the computer. No it isn’t. It is the fault of those who touch it. It’s like saying ‘naughty stuff just pops up on my PC’, no it doesn’t. I would imagine they get paid to ‘manage’ my account? If I have to manage it myself; I should be on the payroll.

If indeed the computer is flying solo, what are these people for?

Send them home and give me the password.

I will log in weekly and enter a meter reading. By the way, why do two people come to read my meters infrequently? Now I hear the mutterings of corporate nonsense ‘Talented people are the lifeblood of any company and we value the skills and ability of our great people’. If you Google experiments carried out with monkeys you will find that they possess certain levels of intelligence similar to humans. ‘Pay peanuts and you get monkeys’. How many peanuts a month do you pay the Cloth-Ears?

Why do you find it so difficult to service accounts properly?

Why is it so difficult to speak to someone at the top to offer consumer feedback?

Why do I have to spend half of the short time I have left on this planet working for you for free?

Listen! It is a simple business model. I pay. You supply. I am the customer. You are the service provider. Use your people to read meters regularly and get them away from the computer. They can’t control it.

Of course you are not the only one who it is difficult to communicate with. Following my helpful approach to Aldi re: ‘The hair in the soup’ incident, I have to come to the conclusion that the managing director is ashamed of his business because he doesn’t allow his people to give his name. I believe it is Walter. If a customer approached one of the agencies responsible for food safety regarding a foreign body in his food his name would probably be disclosed but is that the way we want to do business? Nope!

We want those who run the show, to show their faces on the public stage and demonstrate that they care.

A term, which applies to a shopper flitting from one brand to another, is ‘A promiscuous shopper’. Ms Nomates hates promiscuity but I will flit when she isn’t looking. I can change my energy supplier. Aldi already has less revenue thanks to the MD’s attitude. Our extended family average weekly spend has dropped by about £230, now giving the bulk of our business to others. That’s a £10,000 a year loss Walter. (Das ist ein £10,000 jahrverlust Walter).

You know what they say ‘Every LIDL helps’. (This could be their new slogan. If they take it on I want royalties.) Why do you business moguls spend fortunes on advertising? Talk to us direct.

‘Have a nice day now’. Don’t you just hate it when they say that?