So I’d like to divert from my usual blatherings to something closer to home. I’d like to describe a recent epic user experience fail on the part of my telecoms service provider.
I have been a loyal customer of MTN for the past 8 years or so. I have been as close to a model customer as it is likely to get. I have never missed a payment and since the contract structure I have is ‘Weekend Minutes’, and I never use close to all of them, I usually end up spending at least some money on prime time calls. Since voice is the main thing for me, and with all the interconnect revenues they generate from that, I’m guessing that I have been responsible for about R24,000 worth of revenue at a pretty decent margin over the lifetime of my account to date.
I’m also a pretty easy customer. I rarely phone the call center and I prefer to deal via the web, so in the past I have used MTN Direct as my service provider for new contracts etc.
So I’ve recently run out of contract and have wanted to renew. So my first port of call has been the MTN website.
I entered my details for a contract upgrade and after 2 weeks had not yet been contacted by a service agent. So here I am, wanting to renew my contractual relationship with a provider who apprently is not interested in reciprocating.
Doggedly, I continued to pursue this like some love-sick puppy.
Every few days for the next three weeks I have tried to access the site at: http://www.mtnsp.co.za been greeted by the image below:
So foolish as I am, I just assumed that it really was down. Even for this extended period.
Until I received an email from MTN with my statement, which mentioned a ‘Summer Sale’. Clicking on that took me to the site in some weird aspx level. So clearly, when some maintenance was done to the site, nobody bothered to redirect the landing page to the correct aspx landing page. And since this has been going on for more than three weeks now (and yes, this screenshot was taken a few minutes ago), it mens nobody has bothered to check why their site stats are down. Their bounce rate must be 100%!
But now I have managed to get to the two pieces of information I am looking for: the handset and telephone number I need to call to arrange my contract. This part is fairly smooth, I get an email with the forms in PDF format, but I can’t edit them. So I have to print them, write all my details in my inelegant scrawl in a space too small to actually accommodate the info, scan and email back.
No acknowledgement of receipt follows. Unless you count the spam joke email I received the CSR who I exchanged email with, telling me to ‘Hang in there, it’s nearly Xmas!’
I had been told by the CSR that the phone could take about a week to reach me.
What frankly fascinates me is that I went through this exact process about four years ago with much less trouble and delay to receive the phone.
So three days pass. I receive two missed calls from a number I do not recognise. They leave no message.
This morning at 6:45 AM my mobile rings. I stumble out of bed, grab the phone from my wife’s hand and listen to someone mumbling at me. He’s asking me ‘How I am’. I am too stunned to really do anything other than blurt ‘It’s very early in the morning!’ To which he replies that he has a delivery of a cell phone for me, that he had tried to phone me yesterday and couldn’t get through, and where in Johannesburg was I, so he could deliver the phone.
This is such a monumental screw up in customer experience that it leaves me literally stunned. I reply that I am in fact in Cape Town. What he said next I could not decipher and then he hung up.
Now, MTN is a company in crisis. And maybe, as a result, I should feel bad about taking my business elsewhere. But frankly, while I feel terrible for those people who will be losing their jobs perhaps some companies don’t deserve to live. It is clear to me that if the people responsible for managing this beleaguered organisation spent a little time trying to figure out how to create a remarkable customer experience, rather than chasing cost cutting measures, they might be able to save their business.
And let me be clear; I don’t blame any of the people I have dealt with thus far for the terrible customer experience (crap website, poor email protocol, phoning me while I am still asleep). The poor guy who doesn’t know I am in Cape Town and whose been told he has to get hold of me is likely some poor schlub who works for near minimum wage. He is more than likely doing what he has been told to do.
I blame PF Nhleko for creating a culture of mediocrity where this kind of crap is allowed to happen at all.
So cheers MTN; it wasn’t worth the pain of keeping the relationship going.
