Tougher Powers for Info Commissioner?

That’s what seems to be on the way according to VNU.

Too little too late if you ask me, that horse has long since bolted….

My Fall Out With Sixt

Iain to Sixt

Hi there, on average I rent about 12 vehicles per year. In about 95% of cases the fuel tank is full when I collect the vehicle. In every single case where the tank is not full, other than the rental I refer to, the fact that it is not full has been made clear to me – overtly pointed out by the person handing over the vehicle.

This did not happen in the case of this rental, so my view is that you can point to whatever policies you like – your processes at point of rental are flawed; being based on a ‘ideal’ which rarely reflect the reality of the vehicle pick up experience.

You’ve just lost a customer – one whose life time spend with Sixt would have far outweighed the £20 you have extracted from me through poor processes.

Thanks for nothing.

Iain

On 13 Jul 2007, at 16:27, customer-service-uk@sixt.com wrote:

Dear Mr Henderson,

thank you for your e-mail to Sixt and for forwarding the documentation.The
Pre-Rental Inspection sheet which was completed and given to you with the
vehicle clearly shows that the vehicle was 7/8 full. It is vitally
important that customers to check this document prior to taking the vehicle
to ensure no disputes will occur further down the line.

A vehicle is always to be returned with the same amount of fuel as it is
received to ensure that no refuelling charge will apply.

Unfortunately we are unable to reimburse for any additional fuel which you
have chosen to put in the vehicle prior to it’s return.

I am sincerley sorry for any inconvenience caused and do hope that this
experience will not deter you from renting with us again in the future.

Kind regards
Sixt Kenning Ltd.
t/a Sixt rent a car

Lisbeth-Faye Strutt
Customer Relations
Durrant House 47 Hollywell Street
Chesterfield S41 7JN
Great Britain

This is just how easy it is to have 100k identities stolen…

So far as I can see, Identity Theft is very rarely about people raking through your bin; it is usually much more like this.

Inside theft from within big organisations with poorly secured customer databases are a far greater threat.

Season Ticket No More..

Well, the end of an era…..i’ve given up my Rangers season ticket after 20 years.

Admittedly this is partly to do with another truly bad season – no trophies for the second year running; but in practice it is more to do with the fact that living in London means that I only attend 5-6 games a year. I also don’t like the ‘lock-in’ approach that means I have to commit to buying tickets for all European games before the draw has been made – very inflexible and no use for those not living in Glasgow.

Anyway, the way the ticket situation is these days, I can just as easily buy a ticket for the games I want to see.

Of course, so far as Rangers are concerned – they won’t notice; as technically i’ve not given it up. My brother is taking it over and paying me for it. Of course if Rangers would adopt a more realistic/ customer friendly set of processes, we would not have to tackle things this way – not much chance of that happening; football clubs remain one of the less advanced sectors in terms of customer-friendly processes. No doubt this is a legacy of demand for tickets outweighing supply – eventually they will recognise that this is rarely still the case.

www.123reg.co.uk

I was trying to renew one of my domain names that was bought originally through this lot. Despite sending me e-mails regularly, their customer log-in (which uses e-mail) refused to recognise my e-mail address so I could not get in to renew.

So….I had to then phone them up at a cost of 10p per minute. After 40 minutes on hold I got through to Peter – he said that he had to look up some information and that he’d call me back after 2 the next day – by which point I had one day left before the domain expired. From our discussion, I had very little confidence that this call-back was in fact going to happen – so I checked with Peter who re-assured me that he would indeed call back the following day to progress.

……guess what…..no call back. Thankfully I then found a way to renew the domain through the reseller I use who have an account with 123reg.

Needless to say, any business I have with 123reg is now about to be shifted.

The Customer’s Voice says….

…..09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0

Troubled Times Ahead for the High Street Banks

This ongoing court case over bank charges looks set to rumble on for a while – although I don’t see how any can doubt that the bank charge regime quoted was based on excessive profits.

The much bigger issue, I suspect, will be this – the UK Information Commissioners investigation into practicies within Barclays call centres. There must be a lot of call centre managers panicking at present – Barclays are unlikely to be the only ones whose practices merit investigation.

Bicycle Theft

Apparently a bike is stolen every 71 seconds somewhere in England – with central London the no 1 hotspot.

….tell me about it, i’ve has 3 stolen in London on the last 3 years, all locked in public places.

What’s this got to do with supplier management? Well – I have a view that the ‘bike industry’ is at least partly responsible for these high numbers. Each time i’ve had a bike stolen i’ve gone back and got a new one. Each time the seller is understandably sympathetic, for at least half a second, before launching into….what bike do you want, of course you’ll need two locks, a digital tag and some insurance.

And I doubt very much if the bike manufacturers, or the insurance companies are too worried about it either.

Just how difficult can it be to produce a theft proof bike. This is probably the first time ever i’ve thought that maybe I should have done that engineering degree!!!!

This sounds painful, but probably worth thinking about.

Wiping your new PC and starting again gets rid of ‘crapware’…

Does this mean less junk phone calls?

FSA warns insurers to improve cold calling standards
by Joanne Payne Brand Republic 26-Apr-07, 10:00

LONDON – The Financial Services Authority has said that firms must improve the standards of cold calling when selling general insurance over the telephone to ensure they are treating their customers fairly.

The FSA has reviewed a sample of 43 firms to look at their sales process, systems and controls and whether they were treating customers fairly when selling services by telephone. The review found that the general standard of sales was acceptable, although disclosure of significant exclusions and limitations could be improved.

However, the FSA found that the standard of sales was poor when insurance policies such as personal accident insurance health cash plans and accident and sickness insurance were sold through cold calling.

The main weaknesses were found in training programmes, supervision of staff and a lack of management information other than for sales and call volumes.

Vernon Everitt, director of retail themes at the FSA, said: “The quality of cold calling in general insurance was disappointing — consumers were pressurised and the benefits of the product were sometimes exaggerated.

“We expect to see significant improvements when consumers are cold called. Swift action has been taken to deliver these improvements at the firms we visited and we are following up with other firms which use cold calling as part of their sales strategy.”

Such action included: voluntary suspension of sales until deficiencies have been rectified; reviews of rejected claims to ensure that they had not been rejected where the customer may have been led to believe that they were properly covered and; agreement to assess future claims on the basis of what customers were actually told at the point of sale in cases where the sales person did not follow the sales script.