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I like my Amex Platinum card, despite the cost. It's a nice one-stop shop for travel insurance and the executive lounges at airports, as well as working as a charge card and having a rewards programme. It used to be better than it is now because in the old days you could phone a Brighton number and speak to someone in Brighton. Now you need to remember weird password numbers in order to get through to someone in Bangalore. That said, the online system is good, so it's not often that you actually need to telephone them.
But there is one area where Amex collapses, and it's in such a small area of penny-pinching that I really wonder why. They use a private company to deliver your new card once every three years. Citysprint comes round, rings the bell (or not) when you are out (or when you are in) and then you get a letter telling you to telephone the company on an 0870 number to arrange a new delivery date.
When you do this, your "window" is 10 and a half hours. OK, they say that it's normally between 9am and 5pm, but the letter refers to the hours of 8.30am to 7pm. As I said when I phoned them up, even Curry's can manage a three-hour window. If you can't beat Curry's you have a problem.
Anyhoo, I persuaded woman on phone to make it "before noon if possible".
Come noon on Friday, no sign of delivery, so I telephoned again.
"Do you have easy access?" she asked?
"Well, I have a front door", I said, not really understanding the question.
Eventually she said "would you like me to phone the delivery rider to tell him to drop it through the letter box?"
"Why couldn't he do that in the first place?"
"Because we need to get clearance from you first."
"And he won't ring the bell and go away without leaving it?"
"Oh no."
As it happened, I didn't leave the house. Yes, I am sad. And by 7pm, nothing had arrived, no doorbell had been rung.
So, I telephoned again.
This time a guy said "so you'd like to arrange a redelivery?"
"No, I'd like to know why it hasn't been delivered today."
"Oh." He went away and telephoned the despatch rider. Then he came back. "Sorry, he's running late. he had a lot of cards to deliver. He'll be with you within 20 minutes."
"Why?"
"Why what?" Clearly this question had rather thrown him, with platitudes usually enough to placate customers.
"Why did you give your rider so many cards that he can't deliver them all by 7pm and, even worse, he can't deliver mine within seven hours of the agreed delivery time?"
"Well the rider decides how many to take."
"Er, is your rider a freelance paid according to the number of cards he delivers?"
"Yes".
"So if he's a bit short of cash, he takes on 180-odd cards, knowing that unless he's very lucky, he's got no chance of delivering all of them. Then he comes back with the ones he didn't have time to deliver, and says that the people weren't in. You're not really selling your company well here".
And, of course, the guy did turn up within 20 minutes, very quickly in and out. I suspect that it was only delivered so promptly because I made that phone call.
I'm no lover of the Post Office. For a start they tend to lose more stuff than they did when irrelevant marketing gumph made up the vast majority of post. If there's a 90% chance that if something is not going to be missed, then there is a higher chance that it will be misdelivered. But the private sector delivery groups seem to compete with each other for being weird, if not downright insane.
_____________
But there is one area where Amex collapses, and it's in such a small area of penny-pinching that I really wonder why. They use a private company to deliver your new card once every three years. Citysprint comes round, rings the bell (or not) when you are out (or when you are in) and then you get a letter telling you to telephone the company on an 0870 number to arrange a new delivery date.
When you do this, your "window" is 10 and a half hours. OK, they say that it's normally between 9am and 5pm, but the letter refers to the hours of 8.30am to 7pm. As I said when I phoned them up, even Curry's can manage a three-hour window. If you can't beat Curry's you have a problem.
Anyhoo, I persuaded woman on phone to make it "before noon if possible".
Come noon on Friday, no sign of delivery, so I telephoned again.
"Do you have easy access?" she asked?
"Well, I have a front door", I said, not really understanding the question.
Eventually she said "would you like me to phone the delivery rider to tell him to drop it through the letter box?"
"Why couldn't he do that in the first place?"
"Because we need to get clearance from you first."
"And he won't ring the bell and go away without leaving it?"
"Oh no."
As it happened, I didn't leave the house. Yes, I am sad. And by 7pm, nothing had arrived, no doorbell had been rung.
So, I telephoned again.
This time a guy said "so you'd like to arrange a redelivery?"
"No, I'd like to know why it hasn't been delivered today."
"Oh." He went away and telephoned the despatch rider. Then he came back. "Sorry, he's running late. he had a lot of cards to deliver. He'll be with you within 20 minutes."
"Why?"
"Why what?" Clearly this question had rather thrown him, with platitudes usually enough to placate customers.
"Why did you give your rider so many cards that he can't deliver them all by 7pm and, even worse, he can't deliver mine within seven hours of the agreed delivery time?"
"Well the rider decides how many to take."
"Er, is your rider a freelance paid according to the number of cards he delivers?"
"Yes".
"So if he's a bit short of cash, he takes on 180-odd cards, knowing that unless he's very lucky, he's got no chance of delivering all of them. Then he comes back with the ones he didn't have time to deliver, and says that the people weren't in. You're not really selling your company well here".
And, of course, the guy did turn up within 20 minutes, very quickly in and out. I suspect that it was only delivered so promptly because I made that phone call.
I'm no lover of the Post Office. For a start they tend to lose more stuff than they did when irrelevant marketing gumph made up the vast majority of post. If there's a 90% chance that if something is not going to be missed, then there is a higher chance that it will be misdelivered. But the private sector delivery groups seem to compete with each other for being weird, if not downright insane.
_____________
