Well I rang Australia Post to change my account address and get a balance so that I could make a payment, as we had moved home and I was concerned that the invoice may have been missed in the move.

I was on the phone for 20 minutes to some utter ding a ling, who didn't have a clue and could not handle this so-simple request, so I fired off an email of complaint. I was livid! As if your time isn't precious enough without being stuck on the phone to some clueless employee who couldn't even perform a basic request.

The next day I got a phone call from someone in the complaints office who fixed me up so quickly, politely, courteously, and was extremely efficient. I was still pretty cross and gave it to her both barrels, and I have to admit, she probably didn't care, but she sure made all of the right noises, and I felt heard.

My only beef was that she was fixated on knowing the person's name that I spoke to .. which just makes me so mad. Australia Post and all of these big companies set up these call centres to discourage the personal relationship experience, and make it an out-sourced department, but when push comes to shove they want the name of the person on the telephone. So memo to AP: if you want us to have a relationship with your staff and to get to know their names, then don't open a call centre where everyone is just an annonymous voice on the phone with a script.

But otherwise, a bouquet 🙂