9 December 2006

Whose fault is it?

London, December 6th. I arrive at the Royal National Hotel, for a meeting on the 7th. Have to check in and go to meet my hosts at 6pm in a restaurant. The hotel lobby is full of Spanish tourists...

Get to the counter and give a reservation number. My host (University of London) has booked a room for me and will pay. The clerk man comes back with a fax from my host, in which they effectively have cancelled my booking. He says the room is still available, but I have to pay myself for it.

I am astonished. I have not been told anything. I ask the clerk to ring my host. There is an answering machine (it is about 5pm). He says that it is up to me now to decide. I ask if they can help me sort out the problem. He says: "It is not our fault, you have to deal with your host directly".

I get furious. I have heard the same story over and over again. When there is a problem, it is always the customer's fault. I ask to speak to the manager. She is as inflexible as the clerk. I ask them if I can get a copy of the fax. The hotel's policy will not allow it.

I pay and get my room. Get ready and go to meet my host. I tell them that there is a problem with the reservation. They ask me to go back to the hotel and check, as they have made the reservation, but possibly under my full surname (Cordoba-Pachon instead of Pachon).

Back at the hotel after dinner, another queue (yes, lots of Spanish tourists continue arriving!). I get to speak to the same clerk. We search for a reservation, and there is none. I apologise to the clerk, he and I have had a tough day. Next morning, I phone my host and tell them. They meet me afterwards. They have a big apology to make, as it happened, they cancelled the initial reservation and booked me into another hotel. And they forgot to tell me.

Solution: I fill in a reimbursement form and I leave London. Still, feel that there is no one to blame. Each party could have done better (including myself), but whose fault is it?
We live in a society where the customer is the 'king', but also s/he needs to understand what happens behind the scenes.

5 December 2006

DHL Delivery: Registering (again!)


As you can imagine, I currently have a sort of interest now in studying the flow of customer requests. This time is DHL, taking a parcel from Hull to London. This is the story:

I had to send something urgently to a University in London. They gave me a DHL account to send the parcel. Arranged collection for Monday. At 3pm, no one had come (they said between 12:30 and 2:30pm). Phoned them again. They said no booking had been made (I did it on Friday, but apparently their system did not register it!). So I arranged a new collection. When I was collecting the parcel from reception (where they were going to collect it) to store it in a safe place that night, I was told the parcel had been collected (!)

Got the receipt, went on the Internet and yes, the parcel had been collected.
The image is from today, it shows it has been delivered. Today, I am sure another guy from DHL could come to collect the parcel again. I have not told them anything...yet

It seems the desire to please the customer results in duplication of work; misunderstandings, and somebody else's waste of time. As with Dell, they were not that concerned (at least on the phone) of having to try a new collection or delivery. Maybe I am not an expert in supply chains, but if I was the postman coming to deliver or collect, I would not be happy.