[LINK] How Not To Field Complaints: Optus

[Karl Auer]

Hullo Linkers.

Today I had occasion to wish to make a complaint to Optus. They tout
free wifi in Sydney Airport, but if you try to connect, they want money.
Well, someone called Tomizone does.

So off I went to the Optus website, to be greeted with the encouraging
quote that Optus has a "clear, single minded focus on providing a
superior customer experience".

- the "contact us" page takes *minutes* to load.

- they provide no email addresses at all, you have to use a web form.

- they do, if you look hard enough, provide a postal address for the
  "Consumer Relations Group", but nothing for Optus itself, and no
  street addresses.

- the web form requires a heap of information about you; if you are
  an Optus customer they want even MORE information about you. Worse,
  it's information they already have. They seem to be authenticating
  the customer (poorly), but why bother for a feedback form?

- the web form wants you to choose categories for things, the type of
  enquiry etc. None of the categories they supply is remotely suitable
  for my communication, nor, I would imagine, for that many others.

All in all, an almost insurmountable set of barriers to actually telling
Optus anything. I would have thought that dealing with complaints was
consumer relations 101, but Optus clearly has no idea at all about
effectively fielding complaints.

The most amazing thing? They want all that information for *compliments*
too. Bet they don't get many of those - you'd have to really, really
like them to go through all that just to say "well done"!

So I filled in rubbish and let them have it with both barrels. About my
original complaint, but also about their ridiculous complaint form. A
classic case of being focussed on their own needs, not their customers'.

Regards, K.


-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer/                   +61-428-957160 (mob)

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