I’m a big fan of continuous improvement. Any business looking for opportunities to lift their game, should be soliciting feedback from customers – it’s an important part of business. Customers need to be actively incentivised to provide feedback, and the feedback mechanism should be straightforward and rewarding.
This morning the 024 8:00am service didn’t show. I phoned Max (09 3666 400) and gave them the details. I also let them know that the service was also late yesterday. The pleasant call centre rep on the line took all the details to “pass on to the operator”. She asked if I would like feedback on my complaint. I said yes (Well, of course! I don’t want the bus to be late tomorrow and I want to know that the operator is aware of the problem and is doing something about it.). So I gave my number and just before I hung up the call centre rep told me someone will be back to me in ten days. I thought I had misheard, but yes, the turnaround time for responses is ten days. I’m guessing that is ten working days as well.
In my view this is nowhere near enough to incentivise customers to provide feedback. It’s pathetic in fact. Professionally I’ve worked for a number of different businesses. Turnaound times are typically around four hours at most. Why shouldn’t the Maxx complaints system be any different?
I’m not suggesting that a complete solution be developed in four hours, just that an acknowledgement (and ideally a reference number) be given in a timely manner.
