What does the word service really mean?

It’s common today for many organisations, in particular Australia Post, telecommunications companies, banks, airlines and government  to emphasize the fact that they provide a service to their customers. But exactly what do they mean when they use the word service?

13 December 2023

ALAN HAYES

 

JUST over four decades ago, when I moved from the growing population of Sydney to the Central Coast, my wife and chose to raise our family in the rural district west of Wyong. Why? Because we believed it offered a far better and sustainable lifestyle in which to raise our children. It also allowed me to go to university and achieve those degrees I was unable to study for when I left school and to share my knowledge on how to live in harmony with the environment through the books that I have written.

 

In those days, as we do today, you relied upon the service provided by the local mail contractor and that of the telephone service. But somewhere along the line it has all gone so terribly wrong.

 

When growing up both the post office and telephone came under the one umbrella – the Post Mater General’s Department or as it was affectionately known the ‘PMG’. It was all about service, not about money – making sure your letters and parcels were delivered or received on time and that you could make a telephone call as needed. Both services were a public utility, not a faceless money-making-machine.

 

The PMG employed people, lots of people, who would take the time to talk to you to resolve an issue so that it didn’t become a problem for you - the customer was always top priority. You were actually able to converse with a real human being located in Australia that understood what the problem was – not have to deal with an overseas call centre or an electronic voice asking you to select numbers on your telephone dial pad or give answers to asinine questions to a robot, which now only leads to frustration and anger, with no resolution to the reason why you made contact.

 

So, what has gone wrong?

 

These now faceless corporations believe that shedding jobs and providing robotic machines to deal with customer inquiries is the answer to increased profit and the survival of the corporate world. But it comes at a price, in particular when it comes to our postal service and telcos.

 

But corporations, such as Australia Post, still insist that they are providing a service to its customers without hindrance. But seriously, it leaves you wondering what they really mean?

 

In the past, if you lived in a rural community, the Australia Post courier would not only deliver your letter to your mailbox, they would also deliver your parcels, no matter how large they may be, and that included the occasional case of wine. However, over recent times in one of the Central Coast's rural areas it’s seems that certain mail contractors believe that it is acceptable to automatically card all parcel deliveries to be picked up from the local post office. Despite the fact that postage has been paid for delivery of the item to your premises and that, in my situation, it then requires an hour round trip to pick up the parcel – even if the parcel was light enough to juggle and could be held comfortably in the palm of one's hand. But Australia Post still insists on telling you on their tracking advice that the parcel is being delivered to your address.

 

On a local level, at the Post Office, one cannot complain – it is the behind-the-counter staff that have to deal with the myriad of ongoing complaints about why parcels aren’t being delivered to certain rural properties. To try and solve the issue, to smile and to be courteous and polite and do what cannot be achieved with a telephone call to the organisation itself - try and find a contact number to ring; you have a better chance of winning the lottery.

 

But lodge a complaint and you immediately become 'persona non grata’ with the mail contractor and any chance of a parcel being delivered is now on the blacklist, along with a multitude of excuses and reasons as to why parcel delivery is a non-event – gates shut; house not close enough to the road; cows or horses in a paddock, and so it goes on.

 

Lodge a complaint online to Australia Post and nothing is resolved, except to be told you’re not within the mail delivery network. Seriously, who are these faceless people in their ivory towers that cannot understand that one of their postal contractors has already left a ‘parcel pickup card’ in your mailbox when other letters are being delivered.

 

I’ve given up on trying to resolve the problem with the 'ivory tower dwellers', because the situation won't change until Australia Post lifts their game.

 

Perhaps Australia Post needs to change its motto – “WE DON’T DELIVER". Perhaps they need to engage a new mail contractor if their current contractor is not doing the job that they are paid to do? – employ someone who truly knows the meaning of the word ‘SERVICE’.

 

But it's the meaning of the word service, thrown about by these large, faceless organisations, which still puzzles me. What do this faceless people really mean?

 

I bumped into a friend recently, living on a rural property not far from myself, who had recently hired a bull to 'Service' his cows. Suddenly, it all became clear! Now I understand what all these faceless corporations are doing to us!