Phil Bentley the MD for British Gas has issued a public applogy to British Gas customers for their continuous failings in customer service.
Over the past 5 years, BG have been heavily critised for overcharging consumer gas bills by estimation done through their computers. They also have a very serious problem when it comes to customer service. Despite putting in frontline staff of 800.
The problem does not lie with the amount of frontline staff answering customer service telephone calls. It is the quality of training that they receive which is the issue. The frontline staff are equipped with online scripts to handle BG customers as oppose to using their intelect in solving customer service problems. This habit of parroting through computer systems is dissapointing. It is logical that it saves staff training costs, as any odd job seeker is able to take on the position as everything is scripted. Why not hire 800 parrots to do the job, at least there would be no issue with the customer service department at BG experiencing stress.
Btw October 2006 and last month there were over 22,000 complaints regarding BG's customer service including overcharging issues and out of date account details. Rest assured that these figures are a genuine understatement. There would have been more complaints logged in and not accounted for over the past years.
It does not matter that BG claim to be the cheapest Gas providers in the U.K if they are not anywhere on par with their level of customer service and essentially not on par with the level of service provided by their major rivals. This aspect of monopolisation of the U.K gas distribution enables them to provide a cheap service to maximise shareholder earnings.
In the end, the public at large is at a major loss.
Karl Brookes of Energy Watch commented ' Energywatch reported six months ago that British Gas had the worst customer service in the industry.
"Since then their service has slumped from bad to worse."
"What consumers find unforgivable is the firm's failure to deal with their problems and turn it around, despite promises to do so.
As long as profit targets needs to be inscreased each year by corporations such as BG, there is no doubt that this problem will be unimprovable no matter how many public statements are made to the press each year.
A copy of the article is available at http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article2467137.ece
Zarique.
rayani@home.net.my
Posted by: anonymous | Tuesday, May 01, 2007 at 12:40 AM