John Astley: 'Does every company have ‘a very high level of callers’

I am sure many of you have recently watched ITVs series ‘Mr. Bates vs the Post Office’, one of the most outrageous scandals of modern times, sadly among many others, contaminated blood and so on. Some of you will also have listened to this unfolding horror story on BBC Radio 4.

One of key issues in the Post Office saga was the systemic failure of the Horizon computer system, the inadequacy of the ‘help’ line, and the regular lies that were told to the subpostmasters, and by definition, all of us.

I highlight this issue as one aspect of the everyday life experience most of us encounter in trying to connect with the vast range of service organisations that are central to our lives, and on whom many people depend. It would seem that virtually every organisation from government agencies, to GP surgeries are, right now, experiencing ‘a very high level of callers’. Tried contacting Devon County Council recently? Please hold, or go on line, and try later. After the usual long and frustrating wait, many callers express their angst by shouting at the poor call centre staff, when clearly it is not their fault. The real culprits are well away from the front line, making up more euphemisms to fob us off. Why is this happening? Clearly a lack of staff on ‘the phones’. No money or will to pay for more? Or, as I have suspected for some time ‘they’ don’t really want to talk to us, exemplified by many service organisations not actually providing a phone number. Values along with service ethos, play a major role here. Essentially many organisations want to force us to go on-line for us to get lost in the Sargasso Sea of options and so on. But, not everyone has the IT equipment or skills. Add to this the fact that many organisations have increasingly centralised and extracted themselves from a local, even walk in, service. Banks are an obvious example. Remember the promise that the banks would never shut the ‘last branch office’? Yes of course we now have ‘hubs’ and ‘chat’ options, but?

Essentially Service industries of most kinds, public and private (often privatised) organisations are incapable of meeting the demand their creation and existence has brought about over the last century. We don’t only rely on them for almost everything we want or need to do, but have little or no say in this process. So, what can we do apart from moan, exchange anecdotes and horror stories, and complain, again. Natalie on BBC Spotlight is good at selectively picking off complaints one at a time. Emptying the ocean with a spoon? Can there be more accountability? Should our local and national politicians be doing more? If they are as frustrated with all this chaos as we are, is there more they should be doing on a systematic basis? Can we revert to more locally based organisations to fill some of this need, for example Social Enterprises of diverse kinds, respond to needs in a more ‘hands on’ and direct way? Of course many local people,

individually or in charity groups do what they can to fill the many gaps in provision, but this is limited for many reasons.

Essentially as citizens we need do more about finding ways to change these systems because the failure to connect and to actually provide the services upon which we rely will only get worse.