Is the tail wagging the dog...

There was a great movie in 1997 called "Wag the dog" with De Niro and Hoffman. The tagline was "Why does a dog wag its tail? Because a dog is smarter than its tail. If the tail was smarter, the tail would wag the dog."

I was reminded of this the other day when I phoned Telstra/Foxtel to reconnect my Foxtel service. A simple exercise really :

1. You move (obviously)
2. You phone Telstra to advise of the move
3. They thank you for the call and send a technician over to complete the reconnection.

Part 1 and 2 were completed with relative ease, I then phoned to find out what needs to be done. 2 weeks, 7 call centre agents and many wasted hours later I still do not have Foxtel. Why? The system will not process something that needs to be processed. When I try to find out what the problem is - the inevitable answer is "the system"

Now the lesson here is simple. Your processes, procedures or systems should never (ever) interrupt business, cause undue customer agitation or prevent sales. If someone comes into your shop and wants to buy something and your //insert offending item// is down, make a plan. Better yet, already have a plan that can be whipped out, dusted off and used without hesitation.

If you are in a competitive business, that customer may never walk back in again!

I'll let you know if the system at Foxtel stops wagging their customer service and I get to watch rugby again before the Super 14 ends.