TODAY I want to reflect on some interesting conversations of the past this week – all not of the same tone or character. Today is my birthday so I have decided to stay “soft and fluffy”.
First the unusual: I would not have anticipated such a problem and I don’t think the folks at Flow would have either.
I got a call from an old friend of many years, Joan Headley, a 64-year-old pensioner who lives on the outskirts of Bridgetown, and she was not at all happy. She explained that for some time now she had been a customer of both LIME and Flow. Her cellphone and landline services were provided by LIME, and her Internet by Flow. Then the two merged to become one big Flow.
Last week, she got a call from a Flow representative who explained that as a result of the merger they were moving to consolidate her bills, so she could now expect to receive one bill for all her services.
As a person wholly dependent on two small pension cheques that arrive at different times each month, she was accustomed to paying Flow from one and LIME from the other – and if she was stretched in any particularly month she could decide to lose one temporarily and pay the other.
She said she expressed her anger and objection to the Flow rep, who finally relented and told her she would put a note on her file indicating her old arrangement should remain untouched for “a while”, while warning that migration was inevitable in the end.
I confess that I saw only positives in the bundling approach, especially since as I understand it, it comes with a little discount. But I am fortunate that I am not yet restricted to a small pension as my only source of income and it brought to life the old saying that you only appreciate the pain when you are wearing the shoe.
But hats off to LIME’s PR guru Marilyn Sealy. I raised the issue with her and she assured me that the organisation exercises flexibility with its customers where required and that they would contact Headley and come to an agreement. If Marilyn says so I know it will happen, end of story.
Now that’s how you do business – with a human face.
