R.E.S.P.E.C.T
By Emma.
Yesterday, I arrived at work 20 minutes late and almost shaking with rage and upset. For the third time in a week, my bus had once again changed it’s destination, stopping early and throwing us all out into the rain and wind to wait for another bus. The reason for this is to “regulate the service”. So when traffic gets bad, the buses clump up, and those at the end of the line have to wait longer. It is those longer waits that the bus companies lose a bonus on, performance standards are based on waiting times alone, not the service given to ongoing customers. The drivers don’t appear to be trained in customer relations, and are frequently rude and uncommunicative. When things like this happen they don’t make a point of offering transfer tickets, which those who pay for their travel journey by journey need, and in fact can be quite surly when this is requested.
What I started thinking about yesterday morning, as I shivered in the cold, was the Fares Pledge we campaigned on at the election. Minimising costs while incomes are so squeezed is, of course, incredibly important. But actually, what is really missing on every part of London’s transport infrastructure is any sense of value of money; any sense of being a valued customer.
The same is true of the trains. The operating companies have contracts based around minimum lateness, but they too will stop services early, run shorter and shorter trains, cram people in to tiny spaces with no sense that they have to provide for everyone on the station trying to force themselves into the cattle-trucks. Again, there’s no respect for the experience of the day-to-day user. Just a fall back on legal obligations and minimum standards.
Then there are mobile phone and utility companies. They tie you in to a long contract then provide shoddy service, that stays just on the right side of the insanely intricate contract they know you can’t understand. When you look to leave because of poor service, they try to tempt you to stay with cheaper deals. If you do leave, they know and you find out that the grass isn’t greener with another provider.
We all need gas and electricity and few of us are willing to go without a mobile phone. There are only so many providers - huge corporations who between them have monopoly provision. They know they don’t have to invest in good quality service if their competitors don’t. So once again, we are stuck in a world of minimums – including the minimum levels of respect for customers.
The people who get the sharp end are those the companies put on the front line. The drivers of the buses, the ticket collectors, the call centre workers and meter readers. They are shouted at, cried at, wailed at and whaled on. They face abuse from the customers who are being done over by the companies who employ them to stand between them and the reality of their minimums. They too are victims of the lack of respect culture.
So much of our lives is spent in frustration at the daily reminders that in the world of corporate capitalism we are not deserving of respect. The delusion of choice has led to less service, less understanding, less respect. We demonise young men who don’t treat the world around them with respect, and knight old men who do precisely the same, just on a grander scale.
There must be another way. I value the benefits that late 20th century capitalism has brought us. I recognise how much easier my life is than those of my predecessors. But that doesn’t mean I should have to accept my settlement warts and all. I don’t believe that progress has to be attended with depersonalisation. I don’t see why greater provision means a lesser humanity.
Labour has a challenging job to do in a challenging environment. If we are able to win in 2015, we will find ourselves with an economy whose growth has been choked by Osborne’s failed experimenting with expansionary fiscal contraction. We will still be saddled with a very large deficit and as such choices will need to be made about spending and taxation.
We will need to have policies that are about improving people’s lives that aren’t about higher public spending. We need to look at other levers of Government, and a new compact on consumer rights, greater standards and ways to reward those companies that go above and beyond could and should be an exciting area of policy for Labour. It will differentiate us from the stand aside headbangers running the country today. As we look at an active industrial policy, let’s look beyond the obvious, and look at how we can link that strategy to the daily improvement of people’s lives.
We will need to look at how this is done in a way that enhances businesses. My next post will look at how we regulate and what needs to be done to ensure that raising standards doesn’t make life harder for smaller businesses who are often closer to their customers in the first place. But as I have said before, being difficult is never a reason not to do something.
