My gripes arise from comparing life today with the good old days.
If I needed to get from home to Point B, in the good old days, I just rang Yellow Cabs (as a regular customer) with one piece of information – Point B. If their telephone line happened to be busy, then a message said: “thanks, we’ve got your booking, if ready to go, just hang up and we’ll be with you shortly”.
However, today is a different story with community transport, as I discovered last Thursday:
- Ring their number, hoping for a connection within five minutes.
- Recorded voice answers: “this call will be recorded for training purposes. If you do not wish the call to be recorded, please advise the operator”.
- Next message: “please note that our options have recently been changed: to change or cancel a booking, press 1; to arrange communal transport, press 2; for all other enquiries including bookings, press 3”.
- I then realise that my phone doesn’t have any buttons to press, and search for an electronic number pad that might do the trick, and touch 3, in the hope it works.
- Another recorded message: “for payment of claims press 1, or for bookings press 2”.
- Finally, I get to speak to a human being who asks: “Where are you going? What is the time of your appointment?”
- I provide the name of the hospital and appointment time.
- Response: “We’ll aim to get you there 15 minutes early. Wait while we retrieve your home address”.
- After confirming details, I enquire “what time will I be picked up?”
- Response: “Please be ready to leave home an hour beforehand; we’ll contact you by phone shortly before arrival for the pickup”.
- Then comes the tricky part when they ask: “what time do you want to be collected for the return journey”, meaning how long do you expect the appointment to take, and do you think they will be on time or running late.
- With the uncertainty, I allowed 90 minutes for the appointment.
- In actual fact, the doctor was only running 30 minutes late and cut my appointment short to 5 minutes.
- I then rang the transport company saying: “I finished early”.
- Response: “your request noted, but we’re unlikely to be able to bring your booking forward”.
- So, I returned to the waiting room to watch the running of the Oaks, much to the surprise of the receptionist who then offered me a cup of cold water.
- Excitement was running high as the horses reached the final straight, then my phone rang – “we’re here” and I missed the end of the race.
Bottom line: an amazing amount of fuss for a short journey though the quality of drivers and their service was excellent.
By Tony Tabrett
Carindale Writers Group 