* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Micro wrestling coming to NE Ohio – Cleveland.com

    Get Ready, NE Ohio: Micro Wrestling Is Making Its Exciting Debut!

    League City seeking proposals for 53-acre entertainment district on sportsplex land – galvnews.com

    League City Invites Proposals to Transform 53-Acre Sportsplex into Vibrant Entertainment District

    Top 5 entertainment news: Sandeep Reddy Vanga regrets trimming Animal’s runtime by 7-8 minutes, Akshay Ku – Times of India

    Top 5 Entertainment Highlights: Sandeep Reddy Vanga Reveals Why He Trimmed Animal’s Runtime by 7-8 Minutes, Plus Akshay Ku Updates

    Cote de Pablo reveals how Michael Weatherly used his soap opera roots to put her at ease in “NCIS” love scene – yahoo.com

    Cote de Pablo Reveals How Michael Weatherly’s Soap Opera Background Made Their “NCIS” Love Scene Easier

    City of Pelham announces entertainment district plans for former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre site – WVTM

    Pelham Unveils Exciting New Entertainment District Plans for Former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre Site

    Black Box Players presents ‘The Three Musketeers’ – CBS 19 News

    Experience the Adventure: Black Box Players Bring ‘The Three Musketeers’ to Life!

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

    Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

    AI’s race in the dark with China – Axios

    The High-Stakes AI Race: Innovation and Competition in the Shadows

    Eagle Unveils Revolutionary X-Ray Technology at Pack Expo

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Micro wrestling coming to NE Ohio – Cleveland.com

    Get Ready, NE Ohio: Micro Wrestling Is Making Its Exciting Debut!

    League City seeking proposals for 53-acre entertainment district on sportsplex land – galvnews.com

    League City Invites Proposals to Transform 53-Acre Sportsplex into Vibrant Entertainment District

    Top 5 entertainment news: Sandeep Reddy Vanga regrets trimming Animal’s runtime by 7-8 minutes, Akshay Ku – Times of India

    Top 5 Entertainment Highlights: Sandeep Reddy Vanga Reveals Why He Trimmed Animal’s Runtime by 7-8 Minutes, Plus Akshay Ku Updates

    Cote de Pablo reveals how Michael Weatherly used his soap opera roots to put her at ease in “NCIS” love scene – yahoo.com

    Cote de Pablo Reveals How Michael Weatherly’s Soap Opera Background Made Their “NCIS” Love Scene Easier

    City of Pelham announces entertainment district plans for former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre site – WVTM

    Pelham Unveils Exciting New Entertainment District Plans for Former Oak Mountain Amphitheatre Site

    Black Box Players presents ‘The Three Musketeers’ – CBS 19 News

    Experience the Adventure: Black Box Players Bring ‘The Three Musketeers’ to Life!

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

    Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

    AI’s race in the dark with China – Axios

    The High-Stakes AI Race: Innovation and Competition in the Shadows

    Eagle Unveils Revolutionary X-Ray Technology at Pack Expo

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    Validea’s Top Information Technology Stocks Based On Peter Lynch – 7/25/2025 – Nasdaq

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    WhoFi: New surveillance technology can track people by how they disrupt Wi-Fi signals – Tech Xplore

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Google Cloud Announced as a Key Technology Partner for Odoo Connect 2025 in San Francisco – GlobeNewswire

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Business

Brits battle bad service: The UK’s customer care crisis – Matthew Brooker

May 10, 2024
in Business
Brits battle bad service: The UK’s customer care crisis – Matthew Brooker
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Matthew Brooker delves into the enduring issue of declining customer service standards in the UK, attributing it to cultural factors and bureaucratic rigidity. Highlighting anecdotes and data, Brooker explores how this trend impacts businesses and suggests avenues for improvement in customer experience.

Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.

By Matthew Brooker

Every nation has its eternal truth. Brazil is the country of the future — and always will be. In Britain, where the obsequious butler or maid is a staple of the world’s imagination, customer service is forever getting worse.

Reports of bad and declining standards of service are a staple of UK media going back decades. Such tales resonate. Everyone has a story about the poor treatment they received from a bank, restaurant, airline, utility company or health insurer. They are almost always bad experiences — these are the ones that stick in the mind. That’s one reason why conclusions drawn from anecdotal evidence should be treated with caution. The data, though, tell the same story. A biannual customer satisfaction index compiled by the London-based Institute of Customer Service and based on a survey of 15,000 consumers fell to its lowest since 2015 in January and has declined for three straight periods.

Read more: The political party to end all parties…

Having returned from three decades in Asia around the 2022 high point of the institute’s survey, I hadn’t noticed the deterioration. That’s not a commendation. It’s just that the most trying encounters were clustered at the beginning, during the period of initial adjustment to life back in the UK. Some experiences have been good — helpful, polite people willing to go out of their way to fix problems or strive for higher rates of satisfaction. Nonetheless, there are some striking differences with what I became accustomed to in Hong Kong.

What stands out most is the bureaucracy and the rigidity of many who administer it. I abandoned an attempt to open a UK account with HSBC Holdings Plc after being unable to prove my address. Try doing anything as a new arrival in Britain without a utility bill, a magical document that can open more doors than a passport. Having been an HSBC customer for 30 years in Asia didn’t count; neither did the letter that the utility company provided in place of a bill. “We can’t accept that,” the branch employee said, before it was more than a quarter way out of the envelope.

Forms and procedures that serve no discernible purpose proliferate. The traditional model of retailing is: Customer hands over money, shop hands over item, transaction is complete. John Lewis Partnership Plc required me to provide a name, address, phone number and email address before it would fetch a lamp that was in stock. Could the department store just scan my membership card, which contained all these details? No. John Lewis consistently ranks near the top of customer service surveys in Britain — and deservedly. But still. 

I sometimes miss the agility and pragmatism of Hong Kong service. It can be a little rough around the edges (“surly” and “rude” are less charitable descriptions), but speed and problem-solving tend to be prized. A customer-service person for a mobile-phone company once cut short a debate about whether I was liable to pay a break fee for moving to another carrier by interjecting: “OK, what about this: You pay half.” Such midstream adaptations are a rarity in the UK.

Handwringing over the perceived decline in standards isn’t idle rumination. Companies that earn superior customer satisfaction ratings post higher revenue and profit growth, and have fatter operating margins, according to the institute’s research. So getting businesses to raise their game should be an easy win for an economy dependent on consumer spending that has been stuck in a rut of subpar growth and stagnant productivity for more than a decade. Any regression in standards represents a missed opportunity.

Is this really happening, though? I’m not convinced. The customer satisfaction index hit its peak in mid-2022, just as Britain was coming out of the pandemic. “Covid forgiveness” was the term coined by Peter Pritchard, former chief executive officer of Pets at Home Group Plc, to describe customers’ willingness to tolerate substandard service during these testing conditions. This spirit subsided once the emergency passed. The era of Covid forgiveness “is over,” trade publication Retail Week declared presciently in July 2022. The index has fallen ever since.

If service hasn’t deteriorated as much as the survey suggests, I would also temper optimism on the size of any potential improvement. There are things that could help. Companies must resist pressure to cut costs in customer-facing roles. The training, incentives and authority given to these employees are also crucial. And the technology that drives AI chatbots (the source of much frustration) can only improve with time. But the deeper issue may be cultural.

Read more: Jacob Zuma’s MK Party: Provocative rhetoric and few clear policies challenge ANC dominance

There is a strain of British society that doesn’t accept the concept of service. Why this should be is an interesting question. The Anglo-French chef Michel Roux once attributed it to the legacy of Britain’s class system, in which being “in service” meant being a full-time resident minion of the aristocracy. Freed from servitude by the collapse of this system, we British have been rebelling against any hint of subservience ever since. Taking refuge in bureaucratic rules can be seen as a form of passive resistance against uppity customers.

This tendency helps to explain Britain’s reverence for Fawlty Towers. The 1970s sitcom commands enduring popularity not only because it is very funny but because it inspires instant recognition. John Cleese’s downtrodden hotel manager is an English archetype — brittle, snobbish and outstandingly rude, railing against the unreasonable demands of his occupation such as being nice to people. Parts of the British national psyche still cling to the self-destructive grandeur of this attitude. It does have a certain magnificence. It doesn’t seem likely to be very good for business, though.

Could Britain be better at customer service? Surely. In the end, I’m not sure it wants to be.

Read also:

Cease-fire talks in Gaza: Trust erodes as violence escalates – Marc Champion
SA youth pessimism soars: Corruption and unemployment fears cloud future prospects
ANC amplifies support for Palestine, seeks votes in Western Cape

© 2024 Bloomberg L.P.

Visited 29 times, 29 visit(s) today

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : BizNews – https://www.biznews.com/global-citizen/2024/05/09/matthew-brooker-uk-customer-care-crisis

Tags: BattleBritsbusiness
Previous Post

“NATO Lake”: The Baltic Sea that could be Putin’s next target – James Stavridis

Next Post

Tax Freedom Day: SA’s economic alarm bells are ringing

Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

July 28, 2025
Max Eisenbud Named Head of Client Representation for WME Sports – Variety

Max Eisenbud Named Head of Client Representation for WME Sports – Variety

July 28, 2025
Pine Park Becomes a Cold-Weather Ecology Lab – Dartmouth

Pine Park Becomes a Cold-Weather Ecology Lab – Dartmouth

July 28, 2025
National Science Foundation staff decry Trump’s ‘politically motivated’ cuts – The Guardian

National Science Foundation Staff Rally Against Politically Motivated Budget Cuts Under Trump

July 28, 2025
Test Yourself on Science Fiction That Became Reality – The New York Times

Can You Believe These Science Fiction Ideas Are Now Reality?

July 28, 2025
At 35, wobbling on a bike, I met the child I never got to be – VegOut

At 35, Wobbling on a Bike, I Rediscovered the Child I Never Got to Be

July 28, 2025
In a stressful human world, ‘mermaiding’ gains popularity in D.C. area – The Washington Post

Escape Stress with the Magical World of Mermaiding: A Growing Trend in the D.C. Area

July 28, 2025

Iran’s Economy in Crisis: Soaring Inflation and Collapsing Investments Shake the Nation

July 28, 2025
Micro wrestling coming to NE Ohio – Cleveland.com

Get Ready, NE Ohio: Micro Wrestling Is Making Its Exciting Debut!

July 28, 2025
Pacific Mind Health Releases 5-Minute Mental Health Check-In Toolkit – Yahoo Finance

Boost Your Wellbeing with the New 5-Minute Mental Health Check-In Toolkit

July 28, 2025

Categories

Archives

July 2025
MTWTFSS
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031 
« Jun    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (743)
  • Economy (767)
  • Entertainment (21,647)
  • General (16,157)
  • Health (9,804)
  • Lifestyle (775)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (769)
  • Politics (776)
  • Science (15,981)
  • Sports (21,265)
  • Technology (15,748)
  • World (750)

Recent News

Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

July 28, 2025
Max Eisenbud Named Head of Client Representation for WME Sports – Variety

Max Eisenbud Named Head of Client Representation for WME Sports – Variety

July 28, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version