Madonna King: Time to start invoicing businesses who waste our time with bad service

Bad service is now so commonplace even the most extreme examples barely raise an eyebrow. But it takes up hours of our lives and it’s time it stopped, writes Madonna King. Poll

How much time do you spend each week trying to talk to organisations that you pay to help you.

A friend of mine, sitting inside a flash Brisbane restaurant, called the establishment on his mobile a few years ago so he could order a beer.

He’d waited too long for a drink, and without a waiter in sight, thought it the quickest way to quench his thirst. And it worked.

He dined out on that story for months; a ridiculous case of customer service where the diner, once seated, didn’t really matter.

But it’s hard to imagine that even raising an eye now, with a litany of bad service examples taking up hours of our lives each week.

And it’s time it stopped, or we banded together and started invoicing companies for our time.

The general malaise or moodiness we are all feeling is not just about the cost of living. We’re dog-tired. Sapped of energy. Worn down. And it will be a factor in how we vote.

Airport delays have long been an issue for travellers. Picture: istock

Virgin Australia passengers who had to sleep at Queenstown airport over Easter after their flight was cancelled and no replacement option made available, deserve more than ‘safety is our highest priority’.

It is – but that’s the airline’s issue. Seeing a child on Easter morning after paying for a flight might be the end-of-life priority for the elderly gent in 11C.

Indeed, how would the airlines respond if we started charging them for the time we clocked up, waiting for every late flight?

Or if we invoiced the medical specialist who welcomed us into his surgery, 40 minutes after the due appointment time?

Just consider how much time you put aside in any week to talk to your insurer or private health fund, local electricity provider or local council – all organisations you pay to work for you.

And imagine how they might disrupt their business, and try harder, if you started sending them an invoice.

One friend recently spent three hours waiting to be answered by BUPA on why it cancelled her cover, replacing it with an alternative and a new annual premium hike of $500 extra a year. Three hours of her time? Worth $500 I suspect.

Or the tradies who promise, hand on heart, they will arrive on Thursday, but it will be between 6am and midday. You take a day off work and at 11.30am, with fingers crossed, call – to find out you’ve been bumped until the following week.

In fairness, we need to work out how that tradie gives you a day from his annual leave to make up for it.

By doing nothing, business and organisations who have us as paying customers become lazy. We are on the end of the phone or in the waiting room; a captured market. And that means they can treat us in the insolent and offhand way they now do.

Could we start charging medical professionals for the time we spend in their waiting rooms?

One university recently contacted a final year student to say, “Oops daisy, our mistake but a slight mishap has occurred’’, which was later translated to ‘you cannot graduate because you didn’t do this subject in second year, and we require it be done’.

Don’t get me started on packing our own bags at the checkout. Yes, it’s lovely to not have to make friendly banter with a stranger on some days, but when the machine stuffs up and the fresh-faced attendant gives you a look as though you might have deliberately put through an extra banana, it’s enough to drive you spare.

It should be the retailer’s job to pack the groceries! And how about – as a value-add – providing a paper bag that lasts until you get to your car!

Or when dealing with a bank where you have been a loyal customer for decades makes a change, why is it hidden in small print that requires both a magnifying glass and another day off work to navigate?

That should be their job, not ours.

It’s easy to knock customer service and to take a cheap shot at the teenager who is scooping ice-cream as a casual job or who has scored the Saturday night late shift at McDonalds.

This isn’t about that. That’s to be applauded. It’s about how we – as customers and voters – are now just numbers on balance sheets or at ballot boxes, and once they have us, they can treat us any way they choose.

At some point, we’ve got to flip that narrative. Their job, if we pay them, is to make life easier for us.

And that includes our health insurers, our retailers, our airlines. And our politicians.

Originally published as Madonna King: Time to start invoicing businesses who waste our time with bad service