Katherine’s a good friend of mine, and we were recently talking about the effect of disengagement on customer service. Katherine told me the tale of her ongoing Barclaycard experience. I shan’t go into all the details, but the story is a catalogue of lost paperwork, waiting for the contact centre to answer, failed promises on call backs, and a breakdown of trust. At one point while Barclaycard were searching for (another) lost debit mandate, Katherine was advised by them to pay her monthly credit card bills twice, just to make sure she didn’t incur any debit interest! I know we all make mistakes, I’m right at the top of that list! Even so, I can’t help but wonder what lengths a company has to go to to create such a sense of disengagement that this tale illustrates? As far as I know – the matter is not yet resolved.

Regular readers may know that when I recently heard of a similar story involving BT, a short song helped a friend and BT customer to a swifter resolution. Who knows what will happen this time? Are you listening Barclaycard? If you fancy listening, just click and off you go. Usual rules apply, dodgy acoustics and yes I know I need singing lessons 🙂