Monday, November 9th, 2026, 7:45 am
Manchester City Council Report Card – Part 7 – “Customer Services” Desk That Treats Citizens Worse Than Customers
Filed under: Manchester City Council ‘services’ aren’t really services, just pretence thereof or disservices
ast Thursday at 12:50 (PM) we arrived at “Customer Services” of Manchester City Council. It was almost past lunchtime on a rather ordinary day. My wife went first.
I told them that 2 weeks had already been lost without them making any progress. We lost time and even money. This was the result of bad service, both over the phone (call) and in person. We were ahead in line (almost no people there), but nothing actually went ahead. They pretend fees can be taken, but in practice, the main party benefiting is the phone carrier. The cost for poor people would be enormous, waiting on the line for nearly an hour before getting to speak to an actual person (whom they call “Advisor”).
The bad service isn’t involuntary. We sat there for an hour watching the staff talking to one another. They were idle, all 3 staff, almost the entire team. 2 weeks earlier it was 4 women. It didn’t look like they did much except gossip and banter.
Making reports (higher up) about this seems infeasible. They obstruct this. You’re already there in person and it is the final destination. It’s also hard to get through the doors to actually get there; the security staff seems to be (or have become) eager to “Weed Out” visitors, maybe sending them elsewhere based on a rather shallow analysis. In that regard, the second visit was worse than the first.
Banks are increasingly becoming the same. But banks are private, they’re not town halls.
If the aim of “Customer Services” is to turn customers away (and they use this term like they are shopping for something, “customers”), we need to escalate this matter.
When I finally (after 3 or 4 failed attempts in a two-week period) got through to a queue on the phone there were 19 people ahead on the line. Not a real line, just a thing that chews up your phone bills and does not guarantee they’ll solve any issues.
I’ll discuss this in a later past and share data points.
