It is somewhat ironic that the first blog article I write while living in the UK is one that is critical of the country. Needless to say, if everything about the UK was bad, I would not be here. Relatively low taxes, a basic sense of justice and fair play, many beautiful locations, the pubs, the Scots, 24-hour Tescos, and the British sense of humour are some of the positives. However, the UK also suffers from several maladies that do tend to get on the nerves of someone like myself from a more well-organised – some would say regimented – society such as Denmark.
Even the British themselves acknowledge the fact that one often gets poor or non-existent customer service in the UK. But what is the reason for that? The financial incentive structures in the UK are, if anything, better than in many other European countries (I write “other” because the UK is a European country, whether the Brits like it or not). This seems to suggest that the answer lies in the British – particularly the English - work ethic. Sloppiness, callousness, laziness, incompetence, poor education, a lack of training, and a lack of professional pride in your work are rife in this country among all the social classes, particularly the “working” class. One can only speculate why that is so. Is poor customer service really ingrained in British culture? Certainly, it seems to be nowadays. When you receive poor customer service through sheer incompetence and callousness, and you manage to get the provider to say “Sorry about that”, the British code of social conduct demands that you say “Oh, that’s all right”. Anything else would be extremely rude, even if the “service” you received was not all right in any way whatsoever. You are expected to forgive even when you ought not to forgive.
So the culture seems to be a major part of the problem. It does not promote good customer service in any way if you are not allowed to tell the service provider that the service is not good without the provider taking it as a personal insult. Even when personal insult is intended – usually with good reason – the provider ought to act as a professional even if the customer does not. There is always a reason why a customer would start to insult a service provider. However, in the UK it serves only to antagonise the provider instead of making him think about why the customer reacted the way he did and whether it might be a good idea to change his procedures or his product.
Having said that, the UK does appear to have well-established procedures for customer complaints. Indeed, it seems that many UK providers prefer to provide a shoddy service or product in order to save money and then spend a fair amount of effort dealing with the relatively small percentage of customers who have the time and energy to make a complaint. Seems that this is preferred to providing a good product in the first place. As John Cleese said in his famous Monty Python parrot sketch: “In order to get anything done in this country you have to complain until you are blue in the face!” (or words to that effect).
Was it always like that? The extraordinary British achievements in innovation, industry, economics, and other fields during the Victorian era suggest that it was not. Rather, it seems to be a more recent development brought about by the creation of the welfare state, nationalisations, strong trade unions, government attempts to micromanage certain parts society, and the effect on two world wars on the economy. These events have served to alienate people from their jobs since it has removed much of not only the importance of individual initiative and judgement but also the ability to exercise it. A lot of effort is spent on the blame game – avoiding taking responsibility for your own mistakes at any cost.
Comparing Britain with mainland Europe, examples of British incompetence abound:
- British plumbing is decades – some would say a century – behind that of mainland Europe.
- Trains are generally filthy, cramped, shoddy and uncomfortable. The government regulates everything from ticket prices to purchases of rolling stock and the results are obvious.
- Most airports are also cramped, shoddy and uncomfortable, having been built by the government.
- Commercial banks and telephone companies are so overregulated and micromanaged by the government that they are, in effect, part of the public sector and provide a service that is only marginally better than that of many public bodies such as councils and tax offices.
The recent airport chaos is a case in point. Heathrow and Frankfurt were both hit by snow. Frankfurt closed for three hours. Heathrow more or less closed for three days. On Tuesday 21st December, some 40% of the Frankfurt flights were cancelled. In Heathrow, it was nearer 65%. On Wednesday 22nd December, some 5% of Frankfurt flights were cancelled compared to some 35% in Heathrow. Some 65% of British Airways flights from Heathrow were cancelled - a significantly higher percentage than that of non-British airlines.
One heard many pathetic claims from airport managers and government ministers that the cancellations were justified by “safety concerns” and that other European airports with the same amount of traffic would have been in a similar situation. Knowing Britain, I think not!
It is easy to hold up mainland Europe and particularly Germany as a standard for efficiency. Even their WW2 soldiers were better. Yes, Britain won the war, but one has to bear in mind that Germany was up against not only Britain but also the USSR and the USA – the only two superpowers for the remainder of the century. However, on a conciliatory note, one should remember that a thing such as the Holocaust could never happen in Britain. Britain is quite simply incapable of organising anything on such a large scale. Yes, Britain invented the concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer wars and yes, many people died in those camps. But a fundamental difference between the British concentration camps and the German equivalents was that in the British camps people died not by design but by negligence and incompetence.
