Personal Service

This week the National Audit Office published a report on the truly awful level of service received by the general public from the HM Revenue and Customs office last year. It would appear that over 20 million calls were not picked up at all and those who did get through had to wait an average of 4 minutes and 42 seconds before they were able to speak to an adviser with 6.5 million callers left holding for 10 minutes or more. All of these appalling figures are also a massive underestimate as calls are counted as being answered even if the caller doesn’t get to speak to an adviser… How can that be acceptable? It’s estimated that the level of service will have cost us the general public somewhere in the region of £33 million. As a nation heavily reliant on the service sector this is an atrocious situation but one that is sadly all too common.

Having recently flown from Heathrow to Montreal I saw two sides to to the service coin. Firstly the flight with Air Canada was quite probably the best I’ve ever experienced with the staff being friendly, considerate and attentive throughout a flight that seemed far shorter than the seven hours it actually took. However on landing my experience was altogether different. On approaching customs along with the passengers from several other flights, my heart sank to see that of the 23 positions only 5 desks were open. Now one thing we Brits are good at is queuing and despite the 7 hour flight the enormous queue was very relaxed and calm. Having been to other destinations in the world I know that the concept of queuing is alien and a mass stampede followed by much pushing and barging would have ensued. But thankfully not in Canada. It did however take more than an hour for someone to look at my passport, place it in a reader, ask the purpose of my visit and then wave me through to baggage reclaim.

Now I’m not looking for any special treatment here just courteous, simple, efficiency preferably delivered with a cheery attitude and hopefully a smile. I understand that the monotony of the process may mean my wish for a cheery attitude may be pushing my luck a little but a sense of urgency would be appreciated.

So you can imagine my relief on finally reaching my hotel to find that the staff are everything you would hope them to be without being overly enthusiastic or sycophantic. To be fair I’ve found everyone here in Canada to be amazingly friendly and helpful. Perhaps it’s just a customs thing. Perhaps I shouldn’t post this blog until I’m safely back in the country.