A bank, a retailer and a travel agent walk into the naughty corner
A remarkable variety of companies have employees that let customers down. This week, a prominent retailer, internet service provider, bank and travel service are all doing the walk of shame, says Wendy Knowler.
I spend a large part of my work life alerting company higher-ups to the fact their employees are failing their customers.
Many of the cases are not particularly unusual or shocking but what it does tell me is that their internal escalation processes are woefully lacking, if not non-existent.
It seems to me they'd rather have the various ways in which they mistreat their customers laid bare in traditional and social media than apply themselves to creating a system which red flags a serious, unresolved case and gets it to the attention of someone in the organisation who has the will and the clout to fix it, fast.
Here are a just a few of this week's cases to illustrate what I'm getting at…
In the naughty corner are a bank, a retailer, an internet service provider and an online travel agency.
Nedbank
Neville [surname withheld] was in quite a state when he approached me for help.
A former police officer who was medically boarded after 30 years of service, he receives a government pension on the last day of the month.
But that didn't happen last month because Nedbank unilaterally closed his account, and apparently without reason, on 17 May.
He visited the bank's Greenstone Mall branch to query that and as a result the account was reinstated on 28 May, but then closed again the following day.
Without informing him.
'So I didn't get my pension payment on the 30th,' Neville said.
He was told to ask the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) to reissue the payment, something he was battling to do.
'I demand that Nedbank resolve this problem which was created by them,' he said. 'I am currently too sick to go to the GEPF offices and wait in a queue.'
Meanwhile he'd had to borrow money to pay his municipal bill, 'but I have no money for food, and Nedbank won't loan me any.'
He later discovered that it could take up to eight weeks for the GEPF to reissue his May pension payment.
On taking up his case with Nedbank's media office, I was told that Neville's account was closed by mistake.
'Unfortunately, this resulted in the rejection of the pension payment, which could not be processed as the account was no longer active at the time of the attempted deposit. 'Subsequently, certain debit orders that were still active were processed against the account, leading to an overdraft balance.'
I was told that the bank would reverse any debit interest incurred as a result of that mistake, give Neville a formal apology for the distress it had caused him and offer him a 'goodwill payment' of R1 500 to make up for it.
'We take full accountability for the error and we are reviewing our internal processes to prevent a recurrence of such incidents in the future,' the bank said.
That includes exploring a bridging finance facility to support clients in such 'unique and exceptional circumstances'.
Nice save, but days later, Neville still didn't know about any of that, and nor did the bank manager he was dealing with, who, he said, continued to be 'unsympathetic'.
So back I went to Nedbank to report that. Finally Neville got that 'sorry' call.
Game
Samantha Mewa put a R3 800 hi-fi on lay-by at Game Pinetown (outside Durban) in late December, paying a R1 000 deposit. According to the contract, she had until next month to settle the balance.
But when she called the store earlier this month about making final payment and collecting the hi-fi, she was told it had been sold to make space in their storeroom. What?
First she was assured by head office, when she complained, that they did have stock of the hi-fi in their warehouse, and then the store contradicted that.
'I have not heard back since,' she said. 'What are my rights?'
In such cases – a retailer breaching a lay-by agreement for reasons within their control – they are required by the Consumer Protection Act to double what the customer had paid as compensation.
Was Game – part of the Massmart group – willing to do that? I asked.
That prospect appeared to enhance the retailer's attempts to find Mewa another hi-fi.
'We have located stock of the exact model the customer originally put on lay-by and the store manager has secured the unit, which is clearly marked for her.
'The customer still has an outstanding balance and it will be released once it has been settled in full,' a spokesperson said.
'I am so sorry that this action was not implemented proactively when the customer raised her concern at the store.'
As is Mewa.
Webafrica
Caitlin da Silva of Milnerton, Cape Town cancelled her contract with Webafrica after being let down for weeks by the internet service provider.
It was when she was charged a R1 000 cancellation fee for doing so – instead of being given the apology she deserved - that she felt compelled to share her experience with me.
In March she submitted a home move request with Webafrica, which was acknowledged and confirmed.
But despite multiple follow-ups, the move was never done and she was left without internet connectivity for weeks at her new address as a result. 'It was an untenable situation as I work remotely,' she said.
That's when she cancelled and signed up with another provider.
Then came that adding-insult-to-injury cancellation fee.
'They tried to make it my fault, saying I failed to submit sufficient proof of address,' she said, 'but at no point was I informed that the documentation I had provided was insufficient'.
'They refuse to take responsibility, continue to reference their 'terms' and have now closed my support ticket without resolving the issue.
Multiple attempts to escalate the matter have been ignored.'
Like many other Webafrica clients, Da Silva complained that the company had no direct customer service line – 'only an email system and a poorly monitored WhatsApp chat, leaving customers without real-time support'.
'This is not just about a fee,' she said. 'It's about a company refusing to own up to its own failures, while leaving customers stranded.
Responding, WebAfrica CEO Sean Nourse said the company 'takes a lot of pride' in its customer service, 'but we are aware that we are not perfect and occasionally get it horribly wrong'.
He called Da Silva's experience 'highly irregular'.
While her move request had been captured, an invoice had not been generated – an 'anomaly' which would be addressed, Nourse said.
When that problem was identified, he said, Webafrica initiated the order with the network provider, which responded by saying that a service for the same customer and address was already active under a different internet provider.
As a result, Da Silva's request was wrongly treated as a provider switch.
She was then asked for proof of address and a photograph of the equipment installed at her premises, and on receipt of that, the network updated its records, 'but incorrectly concluded that no installation existed at the address'.
'We are addressing how their information was incorrect,' Nourse said.
But by that stage, Da Silva had opted to cancel her service.
As for the communication issues, Nourse said the company's systems were designed to route queries based on the status of a customer's service.
'Because the invoice was not generated as expected, her queries were directed to a department not equipped to resolve this specific issue, contributing to the delay,' Nourse said. 'All areas we aim to improve on.'
'We have since issued a credit to bring her account balance to zero, and we extend our sincere apologies to Ms da Silva.'
She was grateful for the writing off of that cancelation fee, but not placated by the response.
'Before reaching out to you, I endured weeks of exhausting back-and-forth communication with their complaints department,' she said.
'Despite providing clear evidence and repeatedly requesting escalation to senior management, I received only dismissive and unhelpful replies - often implying that I, as the customer, was at fault.
'It was only after your intervention that Webafrica finally acknowledged its own failings.'
Travelstart
On 26 March, Dirk Crafford made a booking for Johannesburg to Durban return flights. But when he arrived at ORT International on 20 April for his Durban flight, FlySafair said there had been a payment delay by Travelstart and thus he was forced to buy another ticket.
Travelstart promised refund, he told me, but two months on, that had not happened. Instead, Travelstart emailed him to advise him to approach FlySafair for his refund.
Travelstart's recently appointed group head of customer operations, Roland Straub, said a technical issue had prevented the first leg of Crafford's trip from being recognised on FlySafair's system.
[The airline confirmed to me that it could see a failed attempt by Travelstart to pay for that ticket.]
Straub has since received an apology and a refund.
'Please be assured that we are conducting a thorough review of our interactions to identify areas for service improvement,' Straub told me.
So why was Crafford unable to secure the refund without my help?
'I have identified an element of refresher training being required,' Straub said.
'The technical issue that occurred 'masked' what the actual issue was, as the ticket appeared paid on our side but wasn't synchronised to the FlySafair system.
'But there were some flags that could have alerted the agent to this that were missed, so we are using this incident as an opportunity to do some refresher training on how to spot this type of incident if it occurs again.'
That sounds promising.
Oh, that companies would find the will and the way to treat their customers better.
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