Originally Posted by SOE (Post 34142421)

Since the NTL Telewest merger, things within the company have gone from bad to worse. Staff morale is at an all time low, and the general consensus is that the company has basically adopted an attitude of customers and network second, cost savings and making money for shareholders first. The few remaining staff, bearing in mind the constant threat of redundany, are overworked with little or no support from above. If a company treats it's employees in this manner, what chance for customers? The company is in total disarray with the 'synergies' not working and no plan from upper management to sort things out. You may think this is a rant by an unhappy customer or employee, but I can assure you that I am a relatively happy customer who has a very close friend within the organisation. What will be the long term effect to customers? I guess the title of this thread sums it up.

Originally Posted by scrotnig (Post 34142537)

I think one thing that's often forgotten is that no company woyuld care about customer satisfaction if it wasn't necessary to the profitability of the business.

There is often this sort of attitude going around of "ooh that's bad you should care about your customers" as if somehow that should be the first duty of any business. Well, whether people like it or not, actually the first duty of a business is to MAKE MONEY - be it for shareholders, directors, owners, etc etc. That is the sole and ONLY reason a business exists. Nobody does it because they want to "care for customers" or "give good customer service".

The customer care bit is only done to the minimum necessary to ensure the business can actually function and make a profit. One of the most abused phrases is "the customer is always right". This was initially intended to mean that when planning and running a business, you must always look at what the customer wants, otherwise you won't sell anything. However, it now gets used by people who haven't paid their phone bill for six months when they want another month of unrestricted service without paying anything! "I'm sorry, I cannot reconnect your services unless you pay your bill". "Eh, listen mate, the customer is always right, I want another month to pay..." etc etc.

Unfortunately, telephone companies have a largely appalling record on the whole customer service front. Some are getting better, but I doubt it will ever be perfect. When I worked at ntl, a senior manager once explained it like this....it is often better, when averaged out across the entire business, to let one customer leave rather than spend a fortune throwing good service at them, because it costs less money to acquire a couple of new ones. I'm not sure how true that is at ntl given the installation costs, but I can certainly see it being true at "resellers" such as TalkTalk.