I’ve a hate relationship with Telstra our national Telco (henceforth referred to as “Tellsomeonewhocares”) … This is because I believe their service to be apalling and their prices extortionate. So I don’t use them. My calls are carried by “the competition”. However there are times where contact with “Tellsomeonewhocares” becomes unaviodable.
This evening was one such time…
As I said Hooroo to the lads at work and was about to leave on the button of 5pm, I remembered one crucial bit of website administrating I had forgotten to do so switched on ‘flightdeck’ to get things back on track. Of course, it always takes 2x as long to do something when you are in a hurry… So at 5:40 I left the building and as I was driving home I decided that a Thai takeaway would be in order as I had to be at work (sitting on babies) at 7pm.
Not being in posession of the number for my local Thai establishment I called “Tellsomeonewhocares” to ask them to connect me.
Now… having been so flustered that I couldn’t pronounce the name of said local I did my best with the rather impatient “Tellsomeonewhocares” representative who answered my 1223 inquiry. When I explained what I wanted she flippantly directed me to a number, which I dialled, and which was answered by a suitably Thai sort of voice.
Of course, being that such establishments are staffed by non english speaking persons I did not hear the correct articulation of the name of that fine restaurant so had no reason to suppose that there was anything untoward going on.
Until I showed up to collect my dinner.
It was emphatically not waiting for me and there was no record of a Chicken and Cashews (no mushrooms) with small boiled rice for a ‘D’
Bu**er
I rang the number given my by “Tellsomeonewhocares” and found that my dinner was waiting for me across town… I apologised profusely, tried to explain in broken Thai (actually, very loud English) that I would not be coming to pick up dinner and they could charge “Tellsomeonewhocares” for the food. And waited another 15 minutes for my local to cook for me.
Now… if my ‘friendly’ “Tellsomeonewhocares” operator had been less concerned with meeting her quota of information calls, she may have extended her time allocation to me to actually give me some kind of restaurant in an approximation of my neighbourhood.
But no… she fully confirmed my distaste for the company and decreased the opinion held by my Thai friends in the restraunt trade in Mosman…
When will they learn that customer service is the means to their success? Oh right… they are government owned.. they can do as they please…
Actually, that rings a bell Ian… Clearly not privately owned enough if that’s the case!
Oh — and have fun with the Informercial. Very exciting.
T*lstr*: if ever I’ve dialled and got a real person, I’ve been overjoyed. I generally get a machine and it can never understand what I am saying. And I hate a machine telling me to "Try again" and speak more clearly. Bleh!
[BTW: isn’t T*lstr* > 50% privately owned? I thought it was.]