Customer Service In The Age Of Convergence

When I switched my broadband supplier, I was left without service for a few weeks because a third party business had backlogs and was unable to deliver the router on time. So what did I do? I demanded a ‘goodwill’ credit of course. Because of the way my multi-play provider is organized, the credit did not go against my broadband, but instead went against my existing television bill. The value of the credit was a fixed proportion of the cost of my television subscription. The failure of that third party to deliver the router is possibly never tracked by the supplier, but they had to pay heavily for it. Worse still, if anyone in management at my broadband supplier asked how about credits for broadband products, chances are nobody would be able to give them answer. The value of broadband credits would be absorbed into the credits for their direct-to-home television service. That is a recipe for wasted money because nobody can tell where the root problems lie. Even when products converge, suppliers need to keep separate data for separate products. Only then can they work out which products are causing complaint and hence less profitable than first assumed.