London – UK: Double decker red bus (Photo credit: wallyg)

Yesterday, I made two international calls to two UK Governments, DWP and DVLA. I received an immediate phone response which was helpful, pleasant and addressed two quite complicated questions to my total satisfaction very quickly – I was seriously impressed. 

Today, I made international calls to Lloyds TSB and EDF. I waited twenty minutes to get a phone response to EDF and fifteen minutes to get a response to LloydsTSB – I was angry. When I asked the Lloyds TSB employee to report the delayed response time, he responded:

We are extremely busy this morning

My conclusion from these four subjective experiences is that the UK Public Sector offers better customer service than one, state-owned bank and one major French owned utility.

Perhaps, it’s time for the operations of banks and utilities to be outsourced?

I agree with Ed Milliband that banks should sell-off their branches.

Why don’t we have outsourced customer service centres dealing with customers’ from all banks?

My sense is that senior management in banks and utilities is out of touch with reality – it’s just management by numbers. 

 Do others have similar (or different) experiences that they want to share?