“For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath”

— The Parable of The Talents - Matthew 25:29 (KJV)

And lo! My bitching and moaning got my wifi sorted.

8:30am Saturday morning a good BT engineer turned up. Often they are shit and uninterested. You're just a number. Not a name. They turn up, fiddle about and then leg it knowing the thing ain't gonna work and that some bitch in customer service is going to get a thrashing.

Rightly.

I can't help feeling my thermo-nuclear eruption on Thursday had something to do with my resolution in record time (still late, of course). My non sweary rant had me 'personally' go for the customer service rep. I alluded to the fact that Sky tape their calls and hoped her manager would be playing this back to them soon. And how it should be used in their annual appraisal to determine her annual pay rise. I made my formal complaint against both Sky and the customer service rep. Unfair perhaps? Random - certainly. Cruel? NMFP.* Effective. Yes.

By the way the rep was confrontational, incompetent and insensitive.

All my years in customer service has proved to me one thing; he who shouts loudest gets their complaints dealt with soonest. It shouldn't be that way but nine times out of ten it is.

It's only when people are personally engaged that you get great customer service. From a company stand point that means allowing the front line to override policy if they deem it necessary. To reward regularly and comprehensively incentivise the front line. From a customer point of view you need to get names, set deadlines, invoke complaints policy, make it personal. Only then will you be taken seriously.

I'm basically on a one man altruistic mission to improve Britain's utilities. Eliminate errors, drive down costs, improve efficiencies, cut down-time; compete globally, bring wealth to the country, bolster tax revenue and simultaneously reduce tax rates whilst increasing spend on social necessities.

The parable of the talents is one of the strangest biblical parables. It seems Jesus is a Gordon Gekko capitalist - 'Greed is good, greed works, greed clarifies!' A little bit like the Samaritan quote that got Thatcher in so much trouble in the 80's (wrongly).

Driving costs down is a moral mission, brothers and sisters.

No, I'm not pissed.**

* NMFP - One of my favourite Malcolm Tucker-isms - Not My Fucking Problem

**Yet

*** The Visible Slap - The Invisible Hand!!! Geddit? I do stand up too.

Over the course of my working life I've had many jobs. Let me list a few:-

- Corporate Real Estate Portfolio Manager

- Boss's bitch

- Gigalo

- Paper Boy

- Customer Service Rep

- Parliamentary aide

One of those may be made up...

But customer service rep... Customer is always right. You never win an argument with a customer. You love a complaint as it allows you to turn an unhappy customer into a happy customer. Blah. Blah. Been there, got the T-Shirt. I remember manning the phones for American Express in my early 20's on a Sunday Morning with a proper hangover getting chewed out by Mr Angry demanding to speak to the CEO. "Come off it, big boy; it's just you and me. What do you want, and do you mind if I put you on hold whilst I throw up?"

Yeah.

Anyway, I've had the unlovely pleasure of moving recently. That entails getting wi-fi transferred. As it happens, one of my earliest blogs on this site (Jan 2015) compared the wi-fi / BT Open Reach / Sky 'not me gov' fuck up approach to Britain in the 1970's and - specifically - nationalised industries. Well - do I ever learn?

BT. Sky. Yeah, guys, between you, you fucked it up royally - again! The surprise is, er, no surprise. Four weeks notice? Days off work? Unhappy children? Missed appointments? Useless engineers? Snide customer service reps talking bollocks.? Yes, let's tick the box on all of these. Oh - and can we welcome into the building that feeling you get where the customer is just the bitch in some gay porn shower scene? I guess I dropped the soap by moving...

I foolishly invoked Sky's Customer complaints procedure today... Asked for a manager. Told them I was making a formal complaint and that they had 24 hours to respond and give up on their 'an engineer will turn up in three weeks' bullshit. And do you know what? They showed as much respect to me as the hillbilly in Deliverance shouting 'squeal piggie' whilst analising Ned Beatty. No - you can't speak to the manager. Of course not! He's too important and too busy counting his bonus. We'll respond in 56 days. Which is about the same time as it takes to get wi-fi in this country moved from one address to another. With Sky.

Why didn't the EU ever do something useful like KILL BT, for example? Open up the market and get wi-fi transferred quickly? Bring in the free market? I might have voted for them if they did (well - not really). But you know what I mean. Being without wi-fi in 2017 is like fighting the invading - and gun toting - Spaniards in South America with spears. You lose, you get humiliated.

So - Sky's customer service policy:-

"Bend over, spread yourself; its gonna hurt and you're gonna pay for it too!"

Where's the free market in all of this?