Across the pond

After writing my earlier blog this morning I steeled myself for yet another half hour on the telephone listening to the automated BT messages. This time I decided to make my third attempt at opting for the ring back option, which is one of the offerings after a series of messages telling you how busy BT is today (and every day from my experience!)

To my astonishment I had a call back in ten minutes from a woman who said her name was Tracey and sounded more like a human being than a robot. I gave her my order number, and she gave me the same answer as before. Mine was a VOL number which she could not deal with so she would transfer me to the right department. Desparate to keep this contact with one of the few real people still employed by BT, I said, please, please could she give me the number in case the transfer did not work. I told her the last time this had happened I had had to listen to automated respenses for 40 minutes before I gave. She said she was very sorry but the other number was an iinternal number and she could not give me a number to ring from outside.

This time, unbelievedly, another human being called, Veronica, answered the phone immediately. Verily the Gods are being kind to me today. After giving all my details yet again Veronica actually found the order but before she gave it to me, I had to listen yet again to the standard warning that this was my provisional number and that BT could not guarantee this would definitely be the number I would actually get when I arrive in Dorset on the first of August.

I took it down and read it back to her. Then came the inevitable follow up. Is there anything else I can help you with today. (BT speak for is there anything else we can sell you today.) No, I told her, but she should know that I had spent three hours on the telephone on the telephone to her company to get this simple bit of information. She then rushed through her routine, ‘Thank you for calling BT. Have a nice day.’ I can easily understand her panic because I have listened so often to BT robot telling me that ‘These calls may be recorded for training purposes’. (BT speak telling their employees that if they deviate from what they have been trained to say they are liable for instant dismissal.)

Now I shall end this blog and start sending out our change of address cards. But before I go I must say one thing more, because I don’t want to give readers the impression that I think BT is alone in treating customers this way. After all I was trained not only to report the facts accurately but also to be fair in the angle I put on the story. Not to spin it in the manner of the tabloids or at the behest of some news editor who wanted to an angle which would sell the newspapers on the newstands.

As if on cue, my wife came in to tell me that her walk up to Hampstead Post Office not successful. We had decided over the breakfast table that it might save us some time on the telephone if the redirection of our post was arranged via face to face contact with a human being. So I checked the Royal Mail website for the instructions and my wife went off up the hill armed with my passport and driving licence as well as her own. The human being at the Post Office (who was probably called Sid) said he could not do it without my signature as well.

There is nothing about this on the website. But the website does say when the user pays £35.95 per surname for this wonderful services for twelve months.