Regulars here in e-business may recall a story highlighting the need for integration of business processes, well, there’s now a final chapter.
As ever, we’re not ones for dry, hypothetical case studies, so here’s the next instalment in what happens when you try to buy a TV licence online, muck it up and then are sent a colour licence for the price of a black and white one.
Last time, we got as far as those nice TV licensing people asking politely for permission to take the £87.50 balance after they made a dog’s breakfast of my credit card refund. Evidently, I was a wee bit tardy in my response, for today I received another missive saying they’d revoked my colour TV licence and £44 had been credited back to my card. After informing me that I could risk prosecution if I was using a TV set, the TV Licence folk obviously didn’t want me to go back on their web site, advising: “Payment can be sent to us at the above address, you can buy a licence at any PayPoint outlet or pay by cash or debit card.”
Nowhere in the letter did it mention purchasing on their web site. Now, if only they hadn’t sent me out a TV licence refund form for the purpose of refunding my credit card, I wouldn’t have ended up getting four months TV licence credit. The words, square pegs and round holes, spring to mind.
All good knockabout stuff you might think, but the serious point is that if we are allowing users to transact business with us online, we ought to have a well thought-out plan for rectifying mistakes. We are, after all, human. Things go wrong.
But being geared up to enable credit card refunds without a series of emails, phone calls, form-filling and letter writing does not push the envelope where e-commerce is concerned. It’s basic stuff that we need to get right from the outset: it’s not rocket science for boffins in white coats.
So excuse me…I need to point my browser at tvlicensing.co.uk. Again.
Previous articles
Joined up thinking (Jan 8, 2007)
Vision on – integrating systems (Jan 29, 2007)
