Automated bloody responses!

So how annoying is it when companies send through automated responses?! Personally, I think VERY annoying.

From doing the task this week I actually got a suprisingly painless response from BT when I emailed (via a form) the simple question 'when is the next bill due?'. It took them two days to reply, firstly with a response saying someone will be in touch and then finally with a fairly personalised brief response with the exact information I needed. Great!

Why was I so suprised at this though? I think we have all had our share of awful responses from companies, following on from my phishing experience with PayPal and me leaving a long complaint style feedback comment on closing my account... I have heard nothing. How rude I feel! Also not impressed such a big company doesn't have a UK office.

Anyway all this though regarding automated responses from companies fell on a week where at work (a telesales person at a financial company) I had a customer request I send through the pdfs of the savings plan information via email because after having sent it in the post for the 4th time, it had still not reached him!

So there I was having to write an email to this customer, something we haven't really done before probably down to lack of initiative and not wanting to hand over any kind of power from the marketing manager. Anywho, I crafted a fairly striaght forward email referring to the conversation we had had and attaching all the information required (which thankfully had only just come in). I also added a bit of sarcasm in there about the reliable postal service, but asked me team leader if it was appropriate and she thought so. Obivously being a financial service I had to include some note about the fact I couldnt give advice etc but overall I was pleased with the email and actually felt like I was delivering a bit more of a service to someone.

Let's hope I go in tomorrow and he has emailed back asking me to call him so I can set up loads of savings plans for him and all his family! Wonder if being personalised and able to respond to individual requests will pay off?

I'll let you know...