But I took heart from Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC to its friends) this week – believe or not, they provide great customer service.
Now, I can HEAR your eyebrows raising already, but let’s just explore my experience objectively for a moment. It’s true that both my enquiries by phone and post were not inspirational in the way that they were handled. There were no ‘moments of delight’, no going-the-extra-mile with thoughtful extras or handy tips.
And worse – they have a whole mountain of separate telephone numbers to navigate, different offices to write to, and impenetrable codes to decipher.
But the bottom line is that, once I rang the right number, and mailed the right department, HMRC staff were knowledgeable, right down to the last box on every form. They may have an ugly process or two, but having followed it, they turned my correspondence round by return post, and even threw in a few leaflets that were absolutely relevant to the issue I was dealing with.
For me at least, the HMRC service experience hit the spot – they knew what job I needed doing from them, and beat my expectation in delivering it.
I don’t have a choice of taxmen to use, but I still expect them to be efficient, organised and expert. And if that means me having to keep 6 telephone numbers on hand to get to six experts who can handle my affairs swiftly and accurately – I’ll take it.
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