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! 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?
Verse 1:
I sent you my debit mandate, and you lost it
I sent another, then another, to be sure
Then you said that I should pay you twice
While you try to find it
So I won’t incur any interest
Are you sure?
Chorus:
I’m lost in the call centre of incompetence
You’re a big company can it really be that hard
I’m asking you to reinstate my debit mandate
I’m going off you very quickly Barclaycard
Verse 2:
Now the months go by and still you keep me waiting
I pay you manually, don’t trust you any more
I dread to think what you are doing to my credit rating
With all these errors, it’s probably gone through the floor
Chorus:
I’m lost in the call centre of incompetence
You’re a big company can it really be that hard
I’m asking you to reinstate my debit mandate
I’m going off you very quickly Barclaycard