John Linton
Maybe it's the constant weather changes and the prospect of a searing heat wave replacing the recent near record low temperatures in Sydney but my in box this morning seemed to contain more, and lengthier, criticisms of Exetel generally and me personally than I would normally receive in a couple of weeks rather than overnight on a Sunday. I have never developed the habit/ability to simply delete emails from addresses/senders I don't recognise always according someone who taken the trouble to write what looks like a good few hundred words the courtesy of reading at least the first paragraph. I do this well knowing that someone I don't know is not going to write so much unless it is some sort of rant that is not going to be of any value to me, or anyone else in Exetel, and that I will simply be wasting my time and that there will be no prospect of any reply I could take the time and trouble to write would have any likelihood of doing any good whatsoever to the party writing at such length about any subject under the sun.
I don't know about you but I've never assumed that a commercial company has ever been set up for the express purposes of screwing up any, let alone many or all, aspects of an end user's life - yet the underlying theme of each of the four emails I read earlier this morning carried that message indelibly clearly and the longest peroration reached 1,328 words to make sure the point was not lost on the reader. Why any of the writers would think that a 'senior manager' within such a company would then be anything other than delighted, rather than "ashamed" of achieving such a result (it would seem to fulfill the basic premise for operating the company) is also a mystery to me. I have also never understood why a customer of any company would think that a "senior manager" of a company that has "completely failed at every level to offer any form of acceptable service" would see any change by attempting to contact that company at yet another level.
I read each of the four emails for up to two paragraphs to ascertain that the writer was delusional and that I would not be able to provide anything more than had already been provided and deleted the arrant nonsense that had been written. It has always puzzled me that anyone, even if they are not very sensible or bright, would think that a torrent of abuse or a set of attempted scathing opinions of every aspect of a company or a person would elicit any response at all - other than in 'real life' a swift punch in the nose. Obviously the ability to rant at a screen allows a sufficient dis-connect from reality to make this possible for people of delicate mental balance.
On an average day I would respond to an average of well over 300 emails, forum posts and blog entries as well as speaking face to face with people who work with and who supply to Exetel. I, like any sensible "senior executive" have only one objective in interacting with people about business related issues and that is to help them with whatever it is they need my input to and by doing so help make Exetel a better company to work with or a better company to supply to. In the case of customers who post on our fora I always try to help them myself (seldom possible) and in the many cases I can't do that I ask someone else within Exetel to deal with their issue/question/problem. Pretty straight forward, straight out of the "supervision for the very young" manual I would have thought. Or as my maternal grandmother once told me "those who don't ask nicely don't get"......probably everyone's grandmother has told them that - at least once...with the few exceptions of the people who on occasions write emails to me on Sunday nights.
I can't understand why a person who has to write to the "Managing Director" about the total inadequacies of the services the company provides and the totally incompetent and uncaring people that are employed wouldn't figure out that those two situations could only exist if the "Managing Director" was equally totally incompetent and uncaring and that with totally inadequate services and totally uncaring and incompetent people the company couldn't possibly stay in business long enough for the writer of the email to get a reply - clearly the company is on the point of financial and operational collapse.
Up until about six or so months ago I often attempted to reply to the content of the sort of emails I received this morning but, with the occasional exception, my replies did no good whatsoever and, as I have often been told by other people within Exetel, simply made an impossible situation worse - so I have stopped replying to anything longer than the single paragraph that is required to write words to the effect "I'm sorry to bother you but I have a problem that apparently no-one else in your company can help me with - my ticket reference is XXXXXX." Strangely I don't get that sort of email.
We really must improve our services and replace all of our inadequate people with someone who can speak simple English and who understands the basic of ADSL....but then.......if the criticisms were true I wouldn't give a damn would I?