Greetings Editorial readers and, in particular, those of you reading in Egypt! What a momentous start to the year it has been. I love a good uprising and I find myself wishing for something similar a little closer to home. Here we are barely two months into the New Year and already we are seeing the same dribble that passes for world’s best practice being peddled by our most prominent corporates. Whether it be Qantas having trouble keeping planes in the air, Virgin and Jet Star having trouble getting planes into the air or any number of companies that seem to have trouble plain doing anything corporate Australia has pissed off more people in 6 weeks than Hosni Mubarak managed in 30 years. At least Hosni ultimately had the good sense to go away – sadly we are going to have to put up with our tormentors for a good deal longer.

So strap yourselves in Editorial lovers, it’s time for a little agitation.

Is Incompetence the New Black?

” ________ is the new black” is a snowclone used to indicate the sudden popularity of an idea at the expense of the popularity of a second idea and certainly seems the most apt way of describing what I seem to keep seeing in the business world in 2011. Why are so many businesses seemingly incapable of performing the very tasks they were set up to do? Why when things do go wrong can they not minimise the impact with the simplest of communication? Why is being competent so out of vogue?

A rival day care centre bought out the day care centre that our two boys go to last year. A simple business transaction you would think. No major staff changes required – just a matter of keeping things running smoothly while sorting out the backend in a way that is unobtrusive and efficient… you would think. But unfortunately Eltham College Kids were not capable of doing that. They made a complete hash of the one thing guaranteed to get up everyone’s nose – the billing. Somehow, some way Eltham College Kids forgot to bill the parents’ credit cards for the service they were providing. Even when parents like us came in to give them new credit card details somehow, some way Eltham College Kids couldn’t quite manage to debit those credit cards. By the time anyone noticed some of these parents were in arrears by $5,000 or more and then suddenly Eltham College Kids wanted to be very efficient and bill the entire amount owed on the very next day.

We all understand mistakes can happen but we struggle to understand why we should be the ones who suffer for your mistake. Eltham College Kids should have, firstly, acknowledged they were at fault and, secondly, offered payment plans or alternative arrangements. Of course they shouldn’t have screwed up in the first place but that is probably asking too much.

Telstra… always in fashion

And as I am relaying this story a friend pops in and tells me of her latest experience with those paragons of communication excellence… Telstra. She and her husband moved into a new house three months ago and for three months have not been able to get their phone working properly. Again, it would seem such a simple thing wouldn’t it? Your phone isn’t working properly so you contact your phone company to fix the problem. They send out a technician of some description who checks it out to determine the problem and then (this will come as a shock to some) fixes it. A simple, time-honoured, method for telecommunications maintenance unless, of course, you are Telstra. Their preferred method of dealing with the problem is to make you contact them ten times or more to retell the same story to ten different people. Those ten people offer ten different solutions to the problem, none of which work and none of which have anything to do with the telephone line itself since it is inconceivable that the most obvious likely source of the problem could actually be the problem. Finally, someone at Telstra stupidly admits defeat and sends out the team of technicians but (and this part is crucial) they don’t bother telling you that anyone is coming. You happen to be home by shear chance and after two and a half hours of shagging about with your phone the young techie tells you the problem is the phone line. Hallelujah, my friend thinks, someone is finally going to sort things out. She thinks that until five minutes after the young techie has gone she gets another phone call from an old techie at Telstra:

“Hello love. Is your phone working properly now?”
“No, not yet.”
“Oh, it should be, I’ve just fixed it”
“But I just had one of your technicians here and he said it was the line that was the problem. How could you have fixed it?”
“Oh no, it’s not the line. I was out last week checking those.”
“But the technician only left 5 minutes ago and he said it was the line.”
“Nah… he’s just a trainee. He wouldn’t know.”

Three months and counting – phone still doesn’t work properly. Is there anything more annoying than having a company tell you that you are the problem when you know it is their equipment or service that is at issue?

Yes!

Having to bear witness to repeated incompetence that not only never changes but also manages somehow to post record profits year on year.

Much more annoying.

BRW – Some Good News at Last

My subscription to BRW Magazine ran out the other week and days before it was due to expire I received a call from Philip in Sydney to enquire as to whether I would like to renew. I told Philip that I found that I just never had time to sit down and read them and that I ended up with a pile of magazines that doubled as a coffee table. Useful in some circumstances, I admitted, but the problem is I don’t really drink coffee. Philip then surprised me.

“I perfectly understand Mr. Rutledge,” he said. “We have a lot of customers who are time-poor and have a similar issue. In your case it would probably be best not to renew but simply buy it from a newsagent next time you have the time or a cover catches your eye.”

I was stunned. Here was a guy who understood his customer. He didn’t try to argue with me nor did he try to sell me anything. He respected my decision and he left me with a much more favorable impression of his magazine. He also alerted me to the possibility of buying it over the counter, which I hadn’t actually considered up until that point but certainly will now. Such was my shock that I even forgave him for using the wanky phrase “time-poor”.

Why can’t everyone do what Philip did? Unfortunately as much as I would like to believe that Philip was the result of excellent training and a strong corporate culture I suspect it had more to do with Philip just being Philip… and there probably aren’t too many of them.