Your Call Is Important to Us. Apparently.

There was a time when Australians visited Service Stations to receive service. An attendant would fill the tank, check the oil, clean the windscreen and occasionally offer an opinion about the cricket. We called them ‘Servos’.

Today, we still call them ‘Servos’, although the service has largely disappeared. We pump our own petrol, wash our own windscreens and pay someone behind a counter for the privilege. Language, it seems, has a longer shelf life than customer service.

And the Servo was only the beginning.

We've become supermarket checkout operators, airline baggage handlers, hotel receptionists and unpaid technical support officers. Nobody interviewed us for these positions. Nobody offered us a salary. Yet, despite our increasing responsibilities, nobody has invited us to the staff Christmas party.

It's called self-service, which is an interesting expression. Traditionally, service was something one person provided to another. Now we provide it to ourselves, presumably because we're such valued customers.

Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with technology. I rather like the convenience of checking in online, and a supermarket self-checkout is a blessing when you're buying just a loaf of bread and a packet of biscuits. Obviously, they trust us almost unfailingly to declare and scan all products and only put ‘We Don’t Trust You’ devices on the more expensive cuts of meat.  It’s all good, provided the machine doesn't announce, in a voice audible three aisles away, that there's an unexpected item in the bagging area. 

The unexpected item is usually me.

The trouble begins when convenience becomes compulsory, and the business disappears behind the technology.

Consider the familiar telephone message: "Your call is important to us."

It's a comforting sentiment, particularly during the forty minutes that follow, while a recorded voice assures us that our patience is appreciated and all available operators are busy assisting other customers.

Apparently, every customer is important except the one currently calling.

Then there's the chatbot, a cheerful little creature that greets us with "How can I help you today?" before demonstrating an extraordinary inability to understand your answer. Eventually, it directs us to a website we've already visited, where another chatbot awaits.

It's less a customer service system than an elaborate game of snakes and ladders, without the ladders.

But there's another side to this story.

When I was Mayor of Kiama, my office was close to Council's customer service counter. On more than a few occasions, I witnessed people becoming so angry that I felt obliged to subtly intervene. These were well-trained, professional employees doing their job well, yet sometimes facing behaviour that bordered on outright abuse.

I would approach the person and stand, not too close but nearby, wearing my most friendly smile. It worked to quietly to defuse the situation. However justified our frustration, the person behind the counter is not a punching bag. They didn't design the system, set the budget or write the policy. They deserve courtesy and respect, just as customers do.

Somewhere in the pursuit of efficiency, businesses have discovered a remarkable accounting trick. They can reduce their own labour costs by transferring work to their customers. The savings appear on the company's balance sheet, while the customer's time, effort and frustration appear nowhere.

And when something goes wrong, responsibility becomes strangely difficult to locate.

Perhaps that's the real issue. We don't necessarily want someone to pump our petrol or carry our bags. We want the confidence that, when something goes wrong, somebody will take responsibility for helping to putting it right.

Good customer service isn't measured by how successfully a business prevents people from making contact. It's measured by what happens when they do.

Perhaps the next great technological breakthrough will be a telephone answered promptly by a person with the knowledge and authority to help.

We could call it a service.