Thursday, December 10. 2009
A matter of convenience, a matter of words, that matter...
I'd drive, in the deep, dark gloom into the car park, park the car then:
stick a credit card into a machine
press a button to indicate the number of hours I was parking for
put the ticket in the car
that's it, simple, dare I say convenient.
There's a new system now, the credit card slot has been disabled by the skilled application of some duct tape, so, the first time I tried to park I had to:
dial a telephone number on my mobile
dictate my registration number 7 digits
confirm the description of my car 1 digit
input a code for the particular car park 4 digits
input the number of hours I wanted to stay 1 digit
Input my credit card number 16 digits
the expiry date, 4 digits
the validation number 3 digits
Then, adding injury to insult, listen to the voice of the machine informing me that, (over and above the cost of the call) there would be a 20p convenience charge.
Admittedly all my credit card details are now recorded on a database somewhere which makes it easy and convenient for RingGo to take my money in future, and admittedly there's value and convenience for the council in centralising and outsourcing the management of their parking facilities.
What I'm annoyed by is that I'm being charged 20 english pennies and paying for a phone call for convenience, convenient to me? I don't see it.
It doesn't matter much, there's little i can do, I rarely wake up thinking "I'll go shopping for some parking today" but it's an object lesson to those with a brand, with customers, those who communicate, words do matter, customers listen to the words, words affect us, and some of us care.
If you use technology to humanise the customer interaction think carefully about the content of that artificial transactional dialogue. I've been intrigued that opinions diverge on this story, I've argued this with a number of folk and been disagreed with strongly, but, my problem isn't the technology or the new system (which is good), it's that surely there must be savings from such a change, but even if it does require an additional charge, it is just that, an additional charge, the careless, reckless, thoughtless use of our beautiful language makes my hackles rise.
