John Linton Exetel has, from its inception, designed its methods of operation on automating as much as possible and, over the past five plus years we have continued to develop new processes and constantly go back and redesign previous processes to meet the over riding goal of operating the company's ordering, provisioning, billing, collection and support systems with as little manual intervention as we can make possible. From what I know of other similar companies operational processes, our five years of dedication to this process has produced an incredibly efficient company....and we now have more resources devoted to our automation projects than at any previous time.
One thing that we have done better than any other company I have ever been associated with is our billing process that automatically blocks a user's access to their service if their monthly direct debit to their bank account or credit card fails. The block has the option for the customer to make a payment using an alternate financial institution which, if it is successful, will return the service within 20 minutes. We implemented this simple, and highly effective, process some four years ago and it has worked very well ever since with very few customers not paying on time and virtually no manual follow up required by Exetel and therefore no 'credit control' personnel when a customer fails to pay a bill. It is probably one of our most successful pieces of automation and a key part of allowing Exetel to provide the lowest possible cost communication services.
However, in this nanny State world of the 21st century there are always the helpless and the argumentative and the just plain unreasonable people who consider that their personal failures and inadequacies of managing their financial affairs in a way that their known financial obligations are discharged on time is, somehow, Exetel's fault. Every month we get something around 1,000 customers whose debits fail and of those 100 people bitterly complaining that we have 'cut off' their service for the trivial reason that they haven't paid for it - "how dare you treat a loyal customer like that" (the other 900 or so just pay within a few minutes of seeing they have been blocked due, usually, to a new credit card end date which despite our many reminders they didn't bother to change). I won't list the other most common 'cries de couer' - they are truly pathetic for someone out of kindergarten to try and offer as a reason why they shouldn't be "inconvenienced just because they don't pay their bill" but most suggest we should telephone them to see what the problem is and then extend them additional time to deal with their financial issues....because they are 'special'.
We obviously can't do that for all the reasons that anyone who has ever tried to call 1,000 people 'during working hours' would know....no-one ever answers the telephone. Similarly sending an email will only get a "never got the email" response...etc....etc.
So from yesterday's billing run we have refined the failed debit blocking system by still blocking the service but now providing a second option besides the "pay now or remain blocked" situation that has pertained for the last four or so years. The customer can now restore their service without paying (this is for the 100 or so poor people whose personal finances are more complex than an updated credit card or using a bank account with no money in it). By taking this option they gain a 'grace period' of 72 hours of restored service (so they can use their internet banking to sort out their problems) and only if they fail to make a payment within that time will their service again be blocked - this time 'permanently' - or at least until they pay for it. I am going to be very interested to see whether this new process reduces/eliminates the bitter complainants who can't understand that it is their responsibility to manage their own financial affairs not Exetel's.
I'm not holding my breath - I'm waiting to be surprised at the new wave of complaints of "what do you expect me to be able to do in a mere three days" type protestations. Perhaps this means that I'm far too cynical to play a part in managing a "customer focused" business - "customer focus" seems to me to mean screwing up suppliers, banks, personnel and your own sanity for the sake of not displeasing some unreasonable and inept person who couldn't care less about anyone but themselves.
Roll on vacation time.