If the profession wants to follow the examples of two of the country’s (and the world’s) biggest organisations, the answer to the question in the headline might be yes.
It pains me to say it but a monopolising IT company that many think gives the impression that the tax law is for poor people, is happy to treat customers with the same lack of respect as taxing authorities.
Many of its products are well designed, at least once they have bedded in, which is why readers should always be reluctant to upgrade to glossy new products that tend to contain damaging bugs.
Recently, as regular readers will know, I upgraded the hard drive on my computer and everything went like a dream except my mail account. This would not work a proprietary program that is part of a well-known office package within one of the most popular operating systems. Any reader who is not addicted to Apple should by now have guessed the name of the company, despite my best efforts to hide it.
After trying relatively hard but ineffectually to sort out the problem myself, I contacted a chat support line. After about 90 minutes, I was told to try reloading a major program and if this failed come back for further support. It failed.
I then spent around 4½ hours on the phone with a very helpful, Bangalore-based Level I support operative. He tried absolutely everything but eventually conceded defeat and promised a call from a Level II support operative.
This individual spent a further 90 minutes dithering around, doing little more than reading a manual and getting help from friends. He finished by assuring me that the fix I required was no longer possible and left my computer in a mess. I requested a call back from his supervisor and arranged a time, which mysteriously became a two-hour window, during which no call came.
To add insult to injury, the manager sent an email that evening asking if the case could be closed.
We agreed a further callback, and to give the gentleman full credit, he was punctual. He also fixed the problem ie managed the impossible. It took some effort and a further 80 minutes, primarily because his knowledge was a little bit rusty, as one might expect from someone who is no longer in a client-facing role.
This was a brilliant outcome except that I had literally wasted eight hours of my time entirely as a result of poor training and, in one case negligence, of the conglomerate’s employees.
It seemed eminently reasonable to request compensation for this level of incompetence. The manager was apologetic but explained that the company’s policy is to refuse compensation in all cases. The best that he could offer me was a brief short-term contract on a program that I would then have had to fund myself in future. In other words, this was no more than an unsophisticated marketing exercise. In case you think that I am more than averagely troublesome, he rather wearily observed that he rejects around 50 compensation requests every day.
The company knows that it has an effective monopoly can treat customers as it likes.
That should have been the end of the column, but yesterday afternoon I had a few queries for the bank that I have used since 1990. I popped into a branch as I prefer face-to-face conversations about finances. However, this large conglomerate with interests around the world, particularly Hong Kong and Shanghai, was so inefficient that I was left sitting around for 30 minutes.
When I finally met a teenaged “manager”, he confirmed that their interest rates are risible, charges are high and eventually even the branch manager agreed with my conclusion that the best bet was to switch my account to a competitor.
The moral that we might take away this dual story is that if any accountant or firm treated clients like either of these organisations, they would probably be forced to close down within a year, as word-of-mouth matters and a bad reputation goes a long way. A second licence might be that it is very easy to go all out for new work and neglect existing clients, who might eventually decide that enough is enough.
Never forget that clients are valuable and should always be treated as such.
In the meantime, if anyone has any tips for finding a great current account or effective office-style IT package, do please let me know.