Neil McNicholas: There's a lack of courtesy among businesses online

That’s because they used to have typing pools where appropriate numbers of staff busied themselves typing letters and answering correspondence. Just as the Dictaphone ushered in the demise of shorthand, so when computers replaced typewriters, and emails replaced letters, typists became an endangered species and, in due course, they seemed to die out completely.

If you write a letter to a company these days, or even if you send an email, you might just as well have thrown it in the bin because, typically, you may never receive a reply or, if you do, it will be so long afterwards that you may well have forgotten what it was you originally wrote about.

I recently took issue with a manufacturer over problems I was having with one of their cars that I had purchased. It took four identical emails before I finally got them to admit receiving the last of them, and I think they only did that in an effort to shut me up. They obviously don’t know me very well.

They tried to claim they hadn’t received the first three emails but I didn’t believe them. If any had not in fact arrived they would have bounced back to me undelivered, but they hadn’t.

Two weeks ago I sent an email to my local borough council on a planning issue. I’m still waiting for a reply. Last week I emailed a well-known high street retailer of clothes and comestibles on a product quality matter, again I’m still waiting for a reply.

Businesses don’t seem to think that it’s necessary to show their customers the courtesy of even acknowledging that a letter or email has been received, and hell could freeze over before you receive an actual response to whatever it was you wrote or emailed them about. Being politely prompt in dealing with their customers doesn’t seem to be on their radar any more. 
It is as if they hope you will get tired of waiting and simply go away if they ignore you for long enough.

Maybe it’s just me but when I receive messages on my answerphone, or emails, or correspondence (even invoices), I respond as soon as possible because that is the courteous thing to do. It’s what I was taught and it’s what I do – and I don’t have a secretary working for me. Why does it take companies weeks, sometimes months, to get round to answering their correspondence – if they ever do? What do they think people are supposed to do in the meantime while they are kept waiting?

In this age of instant electronic communications there is no excuse whatsoever for delayed responses. An office computer system can be programmed to immediately send an acknowledgement of receipt of an email, and so at least you know your communication has arrived and is being dealt with. But usually it’s like emailing, or posting things to, the Bermuda Triangle. They vanish without a trace and you have no idea whether things are being dealt with or not.

And when you finally give up waiting and decide to phone to find out what’s happening, it’s amazing how often companies will claim their website was down, or that they have no record of receiving your email or letter. I simply don’t believe them because what are the odds? It’s even more amazing how often that happens when it involves a complaint. And now, of course, it involves two complaints.

When did it become acceptable for companies and businesses to be so discourteous and bad-mannered? Is it the case that they have filled their management positions with people who quite simply don’t know any better and are therefore totally perplexed when customers actually expect a reply to their emails and letters? Or is it that they really don’t care, or can’t be bothered, and if challenged by customers their first line of defence is to be “economical with the truth”? If this is how it’s going to be, then they might at least rename their departments “Customer (Dis)service” or “Customer (We Don’t) Care” so at least we know where we stand and what to expect.

If they really don’t want to be inconvenienced by actually having to deal with people, then they shouldn’t provide an email or postal address in the first place. But having done so, they should at least have the courtesy to respond to the correspondence they receive – and to do so promptly. And if they can’t do that then clearly they need to employ more, suitably qualified, staff so that they can.

Father Neil McNicholas is a parish priest in Yarm.