Hanging on the telephone: The hazards of poor CRM

Or have you spent a lifetime wading through a myriad unnecessary recorded options, counting in your head the pennies per minute you're spending on this premium number?

And it's so much fun retelling your problems to a new call centre operative every time you ring up to complain.

The sad fact is that for many blue chip companies, the first point of contact with their customers is abysmal. This is inexcusable when you consider call handling systems have been in use for years.

It's not inconceivable that potential sales are lost by these unfriendly systems. Certainly a survey conducted by CSC seems to bear this out, as it found one in four customers are frustrated with the difficulty they experience when using call centres.

It blames telecoms managers for poor CRM implementations that leave customers feeling angry and worthless rather than satisfied and valued.

It is possible that successfully implemented CRM strategies can increase customer loyalty by using the information a company knows about its customer base to make them feel they are getting a personal service.

But maybe, just this once, the technologists should take a light touch and solve the problem with human contact. Train their call centre staff to deal with complaints with efficiency and understanding and employ enough staff so they each have the time to do this with every customer they deal with.

Because what everyone really wants is a human voice at the end of the line they can trust to sort out their complaint immediately.