LARGE COMPANY SYNDROME

by Jez Bond

Ooh… these people at utility companies… One would have thought that getting figures for standing charges and unit prices per kwh of electricity would be a relatively painless process.

“Ooh no, Sir, no – we couldn’t possibly give you a quote now. Call us back when the meter is installed. We couldn’t possibly tell you now, Sir. There are no indicative prices, it really depends on so many things. Ooh no it’s no good you giving us the info now, Sir, our prices change in a daily basis. We couldn’t possibly say what the prices will be next year.”

It’s par for the course and after a few minutes of humouring them and a little playing of the helpless, clueless customer (Melli has passed on to me this vital key to getting ‘service’ out of British customer service) I then climbed out of my trojan horse and extracted the wealth of perfectly clear and concise information I had needed.

The games you have to play to get some basic questions answered. You’d think I was trying to coerce the formula for nuclear fission from a government scientist.

I’m sorry, do you want our business? Clearly not. This is the problem with large companies.