I will try again next month

BBC Media City Bridge – Salford (Greater Manchester)

his is the final (for now) part of a short series (see first part, second part, and third part). My intention today is to summarise my findings. A follow-up series may or may not follow.

Based on my written notes (handwritten), upon coming to Manchester City Council Customer Service I discovered that one was unable to pay with cash except via the Post Office, one cannot update one’s details without going through some online portal (which only works with few browsers and naively assumes one has an Internet connection), the phoneline ‘fallback’ was understaffed and thus altogether out of service (at the time; definitely not rush hour), the people at the Manchester City Council Customer Service could not explain anything about the site and would not receive any constructive feedback on how to improve it. On top of all this, no assurances could be made regarding basic services; they seem to lack access to any system of relevance despite 3 or 4 of them being at the desk, unoccupied and yet sedentary (they mostly chatted to one another to pass time).

There seems to be a staff misallocation problem.

When I attempted to make a polite complaint via Manchester City Council Customer Service they pushed back and tried to escalate (or intimidate). I wrote down the first names of two members of staff; I said I would not publicise these, they were not hesitant to give their names; this was not a personal issue whatsoever, but that seems to have motivated them to approach me and try to become more helpful. They didn’t want bad publicity or a word to their superior/supervisor to raise “awkward” question.

I credit one of two of them at the desk for ‘de-escalating’ and ameliorating a hostile (from them) situation. I left in good terms.

I was there around 1PM for over half an hour on October 22. I was told 5-10 working days may be needed for my input to be handled and taken into account.

Part of my input was of a technical nature, so if it’s relayed to some technical team some time by the end of this month, then maybe I should allow them a month or more to take action.

Manchester City Council Customer Service, in my opinion, can be better trained to handle opinionated people whose intent is benign.

I did not go there to argue.

My guess if that they attract some very difficult people, so they have a short fuse and presume malice.

It’s also what has happened to many cops. They handle hard situations with “rough people” – a term they might use on occasions; that makes them more impatient and suspecting (of anybody).

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