Speaker 1: Lunch with Pippa Hudson and now Consumer Talk featuring Wendy Nola.
Speaker 1: Wendy joining us via zoom from Johannesburg today, so she's
Speaker 1: up in Koteng for a conference, but glad that you
Speaker 1: were able to step out to join us for this hour.
Speaker 2: Nice to have you with us, Wendy.
Speaker 1: We're going to be picking up on two questions which
Speaker 1: we're posed by listeners during last week's show, and the
Speaker 1: second of them is going to lead us into a
Speaker 1: broader conversation about whether the migration to digital customer service
Speaker 1: platforms is actually perhaps having a negative impact on the
Speaker 1: customer service experience.
Speaker 2: So more on that later.
Speaker 1: We've got some very interesting listener WhatsApps spewing in on
Speaker 1: this subject, and I have to say most of them
Speaker 1: saying how frustrating they find the digital platforms, with one
Speaker 1: or two exceptions. So looking forward to sharing that feedback
Speaker 1: with everybody, and please keep on sharing your view on WhatsApp.
Speaker 1: Oh seven two five six seven one five sixty seven.
Speaker 1: Do you find it convenient and easy to interact with
Speaker 1: a chatbot or an on online form or do you
Speaker 1: prefer talking to a human being or having an email
Speaker 1: where a person will respond to you, for example, what
Speaker 1: has been your experience? Is digital migration helping or hindering
Speaker 1: the customer service experience?
Speaker 2: That is the big question of the afternoon.
Speaker 1: But before we get to that, WHND are we going
Speaker 1: to start with an update on clothing labels, Because towards
Speaker 1: the end of last week's show, Stephanie sent us a
Speaker 1: message asking why isn't it obligatory for South African based
Speaker 1: stores to declare the country of origin on their clothing.
Speaker 1: She said it was an issue across both online stores
Speaker 1: and personal in store experiences, and her point was, I
Speaker 1: want to support local South African made quite clothing.
Speaker 2: For example.
Speaker 1: I want to be able to make an informed choice,
Speaker 1: but it's very hard to do that if they don't
Speaker 1: tell you where the product was made. And her question was,
Speaker 1: are South African retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers and creators not supposed
Speaker 1: to add country of origin to an item's packaging and labeling?
Speaker 1: At the time, you said straight away, I'm great with
Speaker 1: food labels, but I need to do some double checking
Speaker 1: on the subject of clothing labels. Tell us what you
Speaker 1: found out.
Speaker 3: Yes, thanks Papa, So yeah, I was pretty sure it
Speaker 3: was the case, but I don't like to so emphatically
Speaker 3: if I'm not one hundred percent sure. So my first
Speaker 3: port of call was Michael Lawrence, who's the executive director
Speaker 3: of the National Clothing Retail Federation of South Africa. He said, yes,
Speaker 3: labeling is required for products online purchases. Enforcement is a problem,
Speaker 3: but technically an online product can be sent back by
Speaker 3: SARS if picked up that no labels are present at
Speaker 3: the time of inspection. And I think the key there
Speaker 3: is at the time of inspections, because I am I'm
Speaker 3: pretty sure that it's not happening. You know that inspections
Speaker 3: are not happening across the board, so a lot can
Speaker 3: be slipping through. So he directed me to, of course,
Speaker 3: a friend of the show, Lee, Sobriti hused the Consumer
Speaker 3: Goods and Services on Bard, who said, yes, CPA Protection
Speaker 3: Act and its regulations provide very clear requirements for product
Speaker 3: labeling and information to consumers. It's sections twenty two for
Speaker 3: those who are interested of the CPA that requires that
Speaker 3: all information must be presented in play in an unstable
Speaker 3: language so that consumers can make informed choices. That's the
Speaker 3: point of the disclosure, right Pepper. It's always so that
Speaker 3: we go into things knowing everything there is to knowes
Speaker 3: that we can make the right choice for us. Section
Speaker 3: twenty four prohibits false and misleading or deceptive trade descriptions
Speaker 3: and trade description includes details such as country of origin,
Speaker 3: material composition, and mode of manufacture of goods. And then
Speaker 3: also in the regulations of the CPA, there is the
Speaker 3: regulation directs that such descriptions should be applied to goods
Speaker 3: in a conspicuous and legible manner. Understand, it's got to
Speaker 3: have a label on, it's got to have a descriptor.
Speaker 1: And it's got to be in plain, understandable language and
Speaker 1: also quite easy to see in an easy to spot place. Wendy,
Speaker 1: I know you've told us so many times. When it
Speaker 1: comes to online purchases, we don't only look at the CPA,
Speaker 1: We also look at the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act.
Speaker 2: Does that add anything on the subject.
Speaker 3: Yes, so, mbud Lee says Section forty three of the
Speaker 3: ECTA ector as when you call it requires online suppliers
Speaker 3: to disclose the main characteristics of their goods, as well
Speaker 3: as full supplier details and pricing information, again allowing consumers
Speaker 3: to make an informed decision. So, in short, the Umbud
Speaker 3: is clear that when the two ac are considered together
Speaker 3: as they must be, there's a very clear obligation on
Speaker 3: retailers and manufacturers to disclose country of origin clearly and prominently,
Speaker 3: and that the same level of detail and description would
Speaker 3: apply to both, you know, a physical store situation and
Speaker 3: the online shopping environment. Bearing my and that when the
Speaker 3: Act came into being in all that was draught up
Speaker 3: as a two thousand and eight, it came into fourth
Speaker 3: and twenty eleven, online shopping wasn't what it is today,
Speaker 3: and so I think we woul have seen a lot
Speaker 3: more detail around that if the Act had to come
Speaker 3: out you know today or in the last I say,
Speaker 3: post COVID era.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So in summary, Stephanie's right to be looking forward and
Speaker 1: she has every right to expect to see that at
Speaker 1: this disclosure on the label. Final question before we leave
Speaker 1: this topic, Wendy, is if it's not there, what's the
Speaker 1: correct thing to do?
Speaker 2: Do you report the retailer to the ombit? What do
Speaker 2: you do?
Speaker 3: Yes? Absolutely, And I mean if you're very sure about
Speaker 3: your facts as well, you could put it on social
Speaker 3: media because I think we need to, you know, we
Speaker 3: need this to be top of mind for consumers to
Speaker 3: know to look for it and go, well, it should
Speaker 3: be here. I don't know where this garment is made up,
Speaker 3: preferred to, you know, locally made or I don't mind important,
Speaker 3: but I don't want from X company. We have the
Speaker 3: right to know things when we're putting our money stuff.
Speaker 3: So I think it's a good conversation to be had. Yes,
Speaker 3: go to the umbut, go to the supply as well,
Speaker 3: and then put it out on social media and remembering,
Speaker 3: of course you've if it's not a hundred percent truon
Speaker 3: in the public interest, it's opening yourself up for a
Speaker 3: defamation claim, so make sure it's always.
Speaker 1: Such a fast Okay, thanks for that, and thanks Stephanie
Speaker 1: for raising an important topic. Now, the second subject, the
Speaker 1: question that came through last week, is one that's going
Speaker 1: to sort of lead us nudge us in the direction
Speaker 1: of the main talking point around customer service and digital channels.
Speaker 1: Last week we read out Zuki's query on air. Zuki
Speaker 1: Makuzeni writing in to say, I am registered on the
Speaker 1: clicks website for online shopping. Recently, when trying to log
Speaker 1: onto my account, the site has required verification of one's
Speaker 1: mobile phone number, which Zuki says is a perfectly understandable
Speaker 1: security measure. She's quite happy to go along with it,
Speaker 1: So get your one time pin and enter that to continue,
Speaker 1: But she says her difficulty is been I can't receive
Speaker 1: the one time pin on my registered number. When I
Speaker 1: looked into why this was happening, Clicks told me that
Speaker 1: the OTP can't be received if one is registered on
Speaker 1: the Wasper do not Contact list and just reminded to
Speaker 1: listeners that is the place where you go and register
Speaker 1: that you do not want to be contacted with unwanted
Speaker 1: marketing and unsolicited marketing, etc. So Zuki says, I'm on
Speaker 1: that list because I don't want to receive unsolicited marketing.
Speaker 1: But the only way for me to keep purchasing through
Speaker 1: my online account was either to take myself off that
Speaker 1: list or to provide an alternative cell phone number, which
Speaker 1: wasn't on the list. Now, in Zuki's case, thankfully there
Speaker 1: was a second phone available she could give them the
Speaker 1: alternative number. But her point is it doesn't seem right
Speaker 1: for a retailer to force one to de register from
Speaker 1: Wasper in order to have an account on their site.
Speaker 1: We have very good reason to register with WASPA. After all,
Speaker 1: were you aware of this? I think clicks should found
Speaker 1: find a better solution, was her comment. Zuki also a
Speaker 1: very significant question, thank you, and when do you reach
Speaker 1: start to Clicks?
Speaker 2: What did they tell you?
Speaker 3: I Dare said, I'll put it to them that there
Speaker 3: has to be a way to avoid this unfortunate situation,
Speaker 3: or many of us would not receive the one time
Speaker 3: pins that our banks send us via SMEs fourth centification
Speaker 3: wouldn't be able to make any purchases. So I said
Speaker 3: there has to be a technical solution, and their response
Speaker 3: was yes. Clicks is implemented a solution to ensure that
Speaker 3: customers can receive their OTP via SMS even if they
Speaker 3: are registered on the Wasper do not contact list. This
Speaker 3: update was implemented on the seventeenth of October, ensuring that
Speaker 3: all customers can complete their verification processes without issue. You know,
Speaker 3: we'll provide any additional information if needed. So it sounds
Speaker 3: to me as if they this was an unintended consequence
Speaker 3: obviously that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we see it, and we seem to be
Speaker 2: having some difficulties. Okay, Wendy, thanks for that.
Speaker 1: Sorry, we just lost your signal for a second there,
Speaker 1: but just to recap again, the issue has been sorted out,
Speaker 1: so Zuki, thanks for bringing it to our attention and
Speaker 1: to their attention. I don't know if it was your
Speaker 1: complaint or probably many other people with the same issue
Speaker 1: flagging the fact that it was a problem. Whatever it was,
Speaker 1: they have found a work around and it shouldn't be
Speaker 1: an issue going forward, So thank you for that.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So that segues neatly wendy into the other digital service
Speaker 1: issue we want to talk about today, and this is
Speaker 1: the question of whether migrating onto digital and AI platforms
Speaker 1: is actually making it harder for customers to engage with
Speaker 1: businesses and particularly to receive help when something has gone wrong.
Speaker 1: As a matter of interest, is that something customers complain
Speaker 1: to you about often or not?
Speaker 3: Yes, it is a common theme. They won't complain to
Speaker 3: me directly about that, it'd be about an issue they had,
Speaker 3: and then it becomes a catalog of the annoyances the
Speaker 3: frustrations they experienced in trying to raise with the company,
Speaker 3: which is often why are they write to me in
Speaker 3: the first place, Because they couldn't get anywhere in engaging
Speaker 3: with the company that they do business with and via
Speaker 3: the channels that that company has chosen to put in
Speaker 3: place for them. So that's why they come to me.
Speaker 3: So it's actually a very significant consumer issue. And it
Speaker 3: occurs to me that if companies did a better job
Speaker 3: of making them selves accessible to their customers, that you know,
Speaker 3: I would have a much smaller inbox. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I had a recent experience that was a
Speaker 1: good example of this, and we're going to share it
Speaker 1: with today. And I don't want to emphasize this. The
Speaker 1: problem at the crux of this matter has been resolved
Speaker 1: and is not an issue. What it is interesting to
Speaker 1: me is how it demonstrates this question of making yourself
Speaker 1: accessible to the customer. And when I mentioned it to Wendy,
Speaker 1: she said, thank you, please send me a summary. I
Speaker 1: want to take this up with Discovery Healthy, where the
Speaker 1: service provider in question. Kind of long story short I
Speaker 1: recently had I received this claim statement for Discovery, opened
Speaker 1: it up to find a very large pharmacy order that
Speaker 1: Discovery had paid straight to the pharmacy and I went, well,
Speaker 1: hang on a second, I never received that order. So
Speaker 1: you've paid close to one in half thousand rand for
Speaker 1: drugs that were never dispensed to me, and I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure if this was a fraudulent claim or if it
Speaker 1: was an error. But my first thought, Wendy, was I
Speaker 1: need to let Discovery know straight away that there's a
Speaker 1: problem with this claim because they have paid it out
Speaker 1: of their chronic illness benefit.
Speaker 2: It's their immediate loss. Let me flag it straight away.
Speaker 1: And that is where my run around began, because I
Speaker 1: first tried calling the customer helpline. After being on hold
Speaker 1: for more than ten minutes, I eventually gave up and
Speaker 1: then went to the website trying to find an email
Speaker 1: where I could send a query. Everything on the website,
Speaker 1: everything on the website was pushing me to the online
Speaker 1: Complaints and Compliments for so I tried to use that,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't get that form to load. It just
Speaker 1: got stuck in an endless loop of please click here
Speaker 1: to populate the form, please click here, and it just
Speaker 1: kept on going back to the same place without ever
Speaker 1: offering me the form. So I then tried the chatbot
Speaker 1: and asked the chatbot can you.
Speaker 2: Please give me an email address?
Speaker 1: The chatbot wanted to push me back to the online
Speaker 1: form instead, so I thenually found please let me speak
Speaker 1: to an agent option within the sort of chatbot WhatsApp
Speaker 1: line function, and eventually got to a human agent on
Speaker 1: the other side and asked it the same question, Can
Speaker 1: you please give me an email address where I.
Speaker 2: Can send you send this statement and flag the fact
Speaker 2: that it's a problem.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and she gave me an address, which I
Speaker 1: then duly used. It immediately bounced back saying this email
Speaker 1: is undeliverable. So I went back into the chat thankfully
Speaker 1: she was still online, said can you please give me
Speaker 1: an alternative email address? And it was at that point
Speaker 1: that this took an interesting turn. She says, we've gone digital.
Speaker 1: We don't do email anymore, and you guessed it. She
Speaker 1: directed me to use the online form, and when I
Speaker 1: explained to her, look, that form is not working for me.
Speaker 1: Plus I would like to do email rather because I
Speaker 1: would like to be able to keep a record of
Speaker 1: what I have sent on which date to hurry, etc.
Speaker 1: Got a very indifferent response. So anyway, long story short,
Speaker 1: I did eventually get that form to load, I filled
Speaker 1: it out, I hit send, and the screen went blank.
Speaker 1: The form contents disappeared, There was no record of it
Speaker 1: being delivered. There was no reference number or anything like that.
Speaker 1: So in the end, I went back into my inbox
Speaker 1: and searched for every Discovery email address I'd ever used
Speaker 1: over the years, and eventually, after trying and getting this
Speaker 1: undeliverable response from about fifteen different attempts, Forensics A Discovery
Speaker 1: got through and Wendy, I have to say that the
Speaker 1: query was resolved quickly. They sent an auto response saying
Speaker 1: we've received your query, and within two or three days
Speaker 1: I received a response saying we've looked into it, the
Speaker 1: issue has been resolved, the claim has been reversed.
Speaker 2: Thanks very much. The final yeap, Sorry, go for it.
Speaker 3: Yes, I was gonna say, I think you should repeat
Speaker 3: that for the benefit of our listeners who might be
Speaker 3: in the same situation. There is one email that works
Speaker 3: if we have a similar complaint.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the one.
Speaker 1: Still working email is Forensics at Discovery dot co dot ZDA.
Speaker 2: But I mean, I mean, it really was a nine.
Speaker 1: I spent about an hour and a half Wendy trying
Speaker 1: to flag what one would think would be a quite
Speaker 1: easy to.
Speaker 2: Do things, so nineteen minutes.
Speaker 1: And then the cherry on top was when yesterday I
Speaker 1: received an email from Discovery saying you recently interacted with
Speaker 1: our agent who sent you a follow up please will
Speaker 1: you rate our service? And I hit the star rating
Speaker 1: to give the rating and it went, sorry, something went wrong,
Speaker 1: we can't receive you're rating, And that kind of summed
Speaker 1: up for me where we're at that.
Speaker 3: I didn't even share that with Discovery.
Speaker 2: No, that was just that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was after the fact, but it was
Speaker 1: quite a demonstration of where things are going wrong that
Speaker 1: you get stuck in this endless loop trying to channel
Speaker 1: you to a non human platform and after nineteen minutes
Speaker 1: what should have been a fairly simple thing to resolve
Speaker 1: to say, hey, I need to stick up a red flag.
Speaker 1: Somebody needs to look at this claim because something is wrong.
Speaker 1: Couldn't be done. And I'm looking at the clock and
Speaker 1: seeing that we're marching towards hop us too. So we
Speaker 1: will obviously feedback to you what Discovery has said when
Speaker 1: engaging with Wendy on this. But it's not the Discovery
Speaker 1: service issue I want to talk about today. It's this
Speaker 1: question of whether digital migration of the customer service function
Speaker 1: is actually doing companies a disservice and in the end,
Speaker 1: eroding the level of customer service I see lots of
Speaker 1: WhatsApps coming in responding, so we'll share those and we'll
Speaker 1: share Discovery's response.
Speaker 2: Join the conversation. Join the conversation you're with Kate Talk.
Speaker 1: We're back with Wendy Nola joining us by a zoom
Speaker 1: this afternoon, and before we share Discoveries feedback, I just
Speaker 1: want to share some of the listener questions that have
Speaker 1: come in, rather WhatsApps that have come in. Wendy, I've
Speaker 1: been asking since the beginning of the show, do you
Speaker 1: prefer do you find the digital platforms helpful? Do you
Speaker 1: prefer interacting with those or do you prefer speaking to
Speaker 1: a human being? And a couple of running themes and Jenny,
Speaker 1: I completely agree with you, she says, I found that
Speaker 1: digital platforms are useful when you just need statements or tax.
Speaker 2: Certificates, etc.
Speaker 1: But if it's a more complicated query, you need to
Speaker 1: speak to a person. Sometimes when talking to the bot,
Speaker 1: they don't understand you. You waste a lot of time
Speaker 1: trying to rephrase your question until you just give up.
Speaker 1: Similar comment from Andy saying customer service via digital is
Speaker 1: nonexistent in my experience. I have yet to have a
Speaker 1: re query resolved via WhatsApp. I feel it's just a
Speaker 1: way to avoid interacting with customers, very frustrating, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't work. Karen saying, I definitely prefer speaking to a human.
Speaker 1: I find the chatbot or digital process more time consuming
Speaker 1: and definitely more frustrating. And then a very interesting perspective
Speaker 1: from Alice saying I'm located in the EU. Online chat
Speaker 1: customer service here is mostly staffed by real people. As
Speaker 1: soon as I see a brand that is only using
Speaker 1: AI bots for customer service, I will ditch that brand
Speaker 1: and never buy from them again, even if I have
Speaker 1: to pay more to switch. So Alice very firmly saying
Speaker 1: I will not support your brand if all you offer
Speaker 1: me is an AI bot and Wendy. One of the
Speaker 1: things I said to you when I summarized all of
Speaker 1: this in my email was I'm not quite fifty years old.
Speaker 1: I consider myself relatively tech savvy. I'm used to engageing
Speaker 1: with online platforms. I do so all the time. I
Speaker 1: produce content for online platforms. If I found it that
Speaker 1: difficult to get through to some sort of resolution, imagine
Speaker 1: what it is like for an elderly customer who is
Speaker 1: not all fair with these platforms, and especially when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with something like a medical aid, elderly customers are
Speaker 1: going to make up a lot of their complainants by default.
Speaker 1: Surely we should be doing better to offer them something. Really,
Speaker 1: I love the email that's just come in from someone
Speaker 1: who's asked to remain anonymous, and that's absolutely fine, but
Speaker 1: listen to this. I work as a financial advisor.
Speaker 2: They're right.
Speaker 1: Our business has been moving quite swiftly towards digital channels.
Speaker 1: Although I embrace the digital age, it is very sad
Speaker 1: how companies ignore our elderly, many of whom are not
Speaker 1: as tech savvy. When I have to issue a policy
Speaker 1: or update an existing one, I prefer to jump into
Speaker 1: my car to see the client face to face, rather
Speaker 1: than tell them that I'm going to send them a
Speaker 1: document to sign via electronic signature, for example. There needs
Speaker 1: to be a better way to service all customers by
Speaker 1: various means, and for the client to select the option
Speaker 1: they prefer to do their business.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I wish there were more people like
Speaker 2: you prepared to go the extra mile like that. But
Speaker 2: thank you. I think that says so much of importance, Wendy.
Speaker 3: And also I mean I look at the case is
Speaker 3: the complaints that the phase onward that regulates, yeah, considers
Speaker 3: complaints around brokers, and and the is very tough on
Speaker 3: brokers that you know, are just forwarding stuff by email
Speaker 3: or whatever. If there's a key change on the policy,
Speaker 3: like you didn't need a tracking device, now you need one,
Speaker 3: and they're not making the call or putting at the
Speaker 3: top of the email. Please note this is not just
Speaker 3: the normal, normal increase in your fees. You must you
Speaker 3: now need a tracking device or whatever. And if they
Speaker 3: if they don't fulfilled mandate in terms of the you know,
Speaker 3: what they're required to do as as financial advisors, then
Speaker 3: the decisions go against them, and that the you know,
Speaker 3: in the one case it was exactly this tracking thing,
Speaker 3: the broke to pay half the loss and the customer
Speaker 3: pay the other because you should have read the email.
Speaker 3: But what I'm saying is they're in that I love
Speaker 3: that email. But she will know that, you know, there
Speaker 3: will be many of her colleagues who are not doing
Speaker 3: enough to make sure there was a meeting of the mind,
Speaker 3: who are not servicing their customers in the way that
Speaker 3: works for them. So in this country, in particular, I
Speaker 3: think we've got the elderly, and then we've got people
Speaker 3: who just haven't got onto the digital train, and I
Speaker 3: mean or you know, totally alienated. So yeah, I love
Speaker 3: this topic. As you can probably tell, I did engage
Speaker 3: with Discovery. I sent the missity of your case and
Speaker 3: I asked a number of questions such as, what is
Speaker 3: the company's position on emails a means of members being
Speaker 3: able to engage with the scheme, When did that policy change?
Speaker 3: And how were members informed? Why the long wait on
Speaker 3: the phone option, you know, is ten minutes plus considered
Speaker 3: an acceptable wait time? What's the issue with the online
Speaker 3: form not loading and submitting? And then I said, you
Speaker 3: know of particular interest to me, was your comment, Pippa
Speaker 3: that because it's something I feel very strongly about. Those
Speaker 3: online forms. Routinely take photos before I sent, but a
Speaker 3: lot of people won't think to do it, and then
Speaker 3: you're left without your own record of what you said
Speaker 3: and when and who you sent it to, as you
Speaker 3: would in the case of a normal email. So I
Speaker 3: just think that that's quite disadvantage.
Speaker 2: That's quite.
Speaker 3: But judicial is the word I looking to consumers them anyways,
Speaker 3: And yeah, as you put it, And then she said
Speaker 3: and then you also said, and as for the chat box,
Speaker 3: you went back onto the chato and that correspondence with
Speaker 3: the agent is gone, that history is gone. You said,
Speaker 3: I'd hope to quote her directly so that you could
Speaker 3: see what I mean about the indifferent attitude. But now
Speaker 3: there's no record of that conversation ever happening. And I'm
Speaker 3: not going to be convinced that is that isn't part
Speaker 3: of the intended outcome with both email and chat boxes,
Speaker 3: and I think that's, as I say, I have a
Speaker 3: very dim view of that. So, yeah, we're told that
Speaker 3: they weren't going to be able to get us a
Speaker 3: response in time, but happily, just in the nick of time,
Speaker 3: we've got quite a comprehensive response to some of those issues.
Speaker 2: Do you want me to read one of them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, I mean, okay, I'm going to leave out
Speaker 1: the stuff of that relates to the actual dispute itself, which,
Speaker 1: as I said, has been resolved. So I'm not questioning
Speaker 1: that it has been sorted out. But a couple of
Speaker 1: the things and we are receiving here input from Karen Sanderson,
Speaker 1: chief operating Officer of Discovery Health. Okay, firstly, the feedback
Speaker 1: on the call center. Accessibility is important to US. Discovery
Speaker 1: Health meets its service target of answering sixty percent of
Speaker 1: calls within sety seconds, ensuring most members connect promptly with consultants.
Speaker 1: While wait times can extend during peak periods, our data
Speaker 1: confirms that the majority of calls are answered within agreed
Speaker 1: time frames. That said, we are continually working to improve
Speaker 1: accessibility across all our channels.
Speaker 2: I want to just insert there.
Speaker 1: I wonder how they monitor that answering of the call,
Speaker 1: because the call is answered immediately, but you then put
Speaker 1: into a holding pattern and in Discovery case, exactly doesn't
Speaker 1: give you a your seventeenth in the queue expect a
Speaker 1: wait of eight minutes. It just says please continue to hold.
Speaker 1: So if they're tracking it by the answering of the call,
Speaker 1: they're doing brilliantly. But if they're tracking it by the
Speaker 1: actual moment of connection with the consultant, that that's a
Speaker 1: different metric.
Speaker 2: So that's that's not really clear there.
Speaker 1: But Okay, so they do track the issue of how
Speaker 1: quickly those call centers calls are answered. Okay, they've gone
Speaker 1: back and looked at the they could find. Okay, so
Speaker 1: they did receive my online submission. The one that went
Speaker 1: blank obviously did make it to them, so they.
Speaker 2: Had a look at that.
Speaker 1: They've also, on their side, been able to access the
Speaker 1: chat interaction with that agent and the comment is Discovery
Speaker 1: Health review of the interaction between miss Hudson and our
Speaker 1: agent has revealed that our chat agent should have resolved
Speaker 1: the query for her right there during the engagement. Our
Speaker 1: team is currently addressing this matter with the agent directly.
Speaker 1: We hope that interactions such as these keep our teams
Speaker 1: continuously learning and gaining the necessary skills to achieve better
Speaker 1: client servicing outcomes in future. Unfortunately, she encountered issues with
Speaker 1: the online form. We are currently investigating these technical challenges
Speaker 1: by reviewing systems logs to understand what went wrong, and
Speaker 1: we'll give further feedback once that's been done.
Speaker 2: Here's the nub of it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, Discovery Health has been gradually transitioning away from
Speaker 1: email as a primary service channel over the past two years.
Speaker 1: This decision is based on data showing that email yields
Speaker 1: slower resolution times and lower satisfaction scores. To support this transition,
Speaker 1: proactive auto responses were implemented on selected email channels. So
Speaker 1: that's what I was getting saying, YESUS channels no longer
Speaker 1: in service. The get Help page was redesigned for improved usability,
Speaker 1: and members who frequently used email did receive direct communication
Speaker 1: from US guiding them to alternative digital channels during this
Speaker 1: transition phase. We also understand that email remains necessary in
Speaker 1: certain situations and will continue to support supported where it
Speaker 1: makes practical sense. Some key email addresses are provided on
Speaker 1: our website in the Complaints and Complements section.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming that's meant.
Speaker 1: To say, Okay, well, I wasn't able to find them
Speaker 1: very easily, I'll say that, but okay. We have also
Speaker 1: provided an alternate, an alternate to email in this section
Speaker 1: of the GETTHLP inquiry, which is similar to an email
Speaker 1: type experiencing prompting on the page guides which guide members
Speaker 1: on what information to include to ensure that all necessary
Speaker 1: information is available. This is just available via the app
Speaker 1: and the website as well. Don't even get me started
Speaker 1: on the app, okay, So just read one more line, Wendy,
Speaker 1: and then we can then revert to you.
Speaker 2: They say.
Speaker 1: All member conversations are saved and accessible via the interaction
Speaker 1: timeline on this discovery app. We have received screenshots of
Speaker 1: the chat transcript and are prioritizing a review of her
Speaker 1: profile with system support. So I mean it's fairly obvious.
Speaker 1: It's they're unequivocal. They are digitally transitioning away from email
Speaker 1: as a primary service, and have in fact been doing
Speaker 1: so for quite some time already. My response to that is,
Speaker 1: don't transition away from it until you've set up properly
Speaker 1: the alternative, because the alternative just wasn't working in my case.
Speaker 3: No. And in terms of the chat box history, are
Speaker 3: they saying that they have a.
Speaker 2: Record of it, a record of it? Yeah, that's the point.
Speaker 3: It's like when you take out a contractor in a
Speaker 3: policy over the phone. They've got the care recording and
Speaker 3: you've got a big and plead for it. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: And my other comment is on the main policy change
Speaker 3: about gradually transitioning away from email as a primary service
Speaker 3: based data showing that email yields slower resolution times and
Speaker 3: lower satisfaction scores. I'd love to see that data by
Speaker 3: contrast with data on how these new things that set
Speaker 3: up are working for their customers. Bearing in mind that
Speaker 3: the elderly suppit the most claims and have most reason
Speaker 3: to want to interact with the medical scheme.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, that's just actuarial fact. So I'm seeing a big
Speaker 3: disconnect here, and it's not just discovery.
Speaker 2: Let's be clear, it's not as well, which is to
Speaker 2: my point.
Speaker 1: I don't want this to be about my particular I mean,
Speaker 1: this is an example of a much.
Speaker 2: Bigger issue that's there.
Speaker 1: Let me just share a few more of the responses
Speaker 1: coming in here, Tony saying chatbots are the bane of
Speaker 1: my life. I have yet to interact successfully with these
Speaker 1: awful things. Unless your query is on their pre programmed menu,
Speaker 1: you are wasting your time.
Speaker 2: This is another interesting example of where it goes wrong.
Speaker 1: Tony says, if you ever interact with the Telcom chatbot,
Speaker 1: be prepared to tear your hair art it's called TUSO,
Speaker 1: and eventually Twoso leads you to ask if you want
Speaker 1: to speak to a human, You answer yes, will get
Speaker 1: You're then told you will get an SMS that you sorry,
Speaker 1: You get an SMS that a Talcom consultant will call you,
Speaker 1: and Tony says, they never do. I have about eight
Speaker 1: to ten SMSs. I've never received a call. So there's
Speaker 1: another example. The system gives you the option of speaking
Speaker 1: to a human, but then doesn't connect you to the human.
Speaker 2: What else have we got here?
Speaker 1: Karen saying the Discovery site is the worst to try
Speaker 1: and navigate endless loops. Richard's saying to Discoveries Reply regarding
Speaker 1: a move away from email, faster resolution times doesn't take
Speaker 1: into account the customer's time chasing all of these channels
Speaker 1: and waiting, And that's point made. This is why I
Speaker 1: meant to Wendy Richard, because it took me nineteen minutes
Speaker 1: to finally, you know, find a way to flag the
Speaker 1: issue I was trying to flag. Lisa is saying it's
Speaker 1: indifference and lack of accountability. Zoos's commented digital customer service
Speaker 1: channels are really not great because they give specific prompts
Speaker 1: and sometimes one is not even sure what.
Speaker 2: The issue is to begin with. So I take your point.
Speaker 1: It makes it difficult to get yourself into the correct
Speaker 1: stream if you don't know what the nature of the
Speaker 1: problem is, and that's often a you know, a press
Speaker 1: one for this, press two for that, press three for that,
Speaker 1: and you get to the end of the menu're saying, well,
Speaker 1: you never gave me an option to press X for
Speaker 1: what my problem actually is. Yeah, a couple of ye,
Speaker 1: a couple of voice notes. When didoul we listen to
Speaker 1: a voice note or two before you respond any further?
Speaker 4: Hi, Shop and Wendy, that clicks problem with the sms.
Speaker 4: I had the same issue twenty around and around for
Speaker 4: about seven or eight weeks until I threatened them to
Speaker 4: take them to the Consumer Consume Commission and they somehow
Speaker 4: managed to have men not complete that last section of
Speaker 4: the verification of your credent of your clicks account. It's useless.
Speaker 4: But yeah, same exact, same problem, And I kept telling
Speaker 4: except I never ever got an answer as to why
Speaker 4: my SMS we're never coming through. So they never told me.
Speaker 4: Now it's interesting that because I'm also on the do
Speaker 4: not contact What's what's a list database, and so it's
Speaker 4: interesting that Zuki got an answer from them as to
Speaker 4: why it wasn't coming through. Mind, they just kept saying,
Speaker 4: we've escalated to the IT department, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 4: and went on for nearly six or seven weeks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I'm glad it was resolved in the end, Tony,
Speaker 1: but thanks for that. There is Before we go to
Speaker 1: the next voice note, I want to take a call Wendy,
Speaker 1: because we have a business owner on the line who's
Speaker 1: taken a very very different approach wants to share it
Speaker 1: with us, Ian and US good afternoon. Hi.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so we made the decision. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 5: I share everybody's frustration, so I won't repeat all of
Speaker 5: that that. You know, the impersonal nature of chatbots and
Speaker 5: corresponding by email just drives me absolutely insane. And I
Speaker 5: one thread up quote by well I think it was
Speaker 5: Warren Buffett who said, in a world, in the modern world,
Speaker 5: it's not enough to satisfy your customer, you have to
Speaker 5: delight them. Because everybody is satisfying their customer, you have
Speaker 5: to delight them. And then, certainly in our market, which
Speaker 5: is in the technology space, interestingly enough, is we're finding
Speaker 5: that our customers are actually craving human interaction. They want
Speaker 5: a phone call, they want to speak to somebody, they
Speaker 5: want to know a name, they want to have somebody
Speaker 5: that can call when things aren't going right. And the
Speaker 5: reaction that you get is actually remarkable because they go
Speaker 5: out of their way to say, you know, how refreshing
Speaker 5: is to actually have somebody call us, and to be
Speaker 5: proactive about building a relationship. So I think, for as
Speaker 5: much as we're all getting frustrated by this migration to
Speaker 5: chatbots and AI driven responses, etc. And I get you know,
Speaker 5: if you're a large organization and you're dealing with millions
Speaker 5: and millions of queries, there probably are benefits to going
Speaker 5: that route. But for a smaller business, take the time
Speaker 5: to actually or use this opportunity to say, how do
Speaker 5: you differentiate yourself in a market where everybody else is
Speaker 5: going in the other direction? The age old quote when
Speaker 5: everybody is getting on the bus, it's time to get off,
Speaker 5: and you'll differentiate yourself in the market and offer a
Speaker 5: better personal service and your business will benefit from it.
Speaker 1: I absolutely love that approach, and all I can say
Speaker 1: is I hope it gets you lots of happy customers
Speaker 1: you stay with you and on loyal because of that.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for calling in to raise that.
Speaker 1: What a fantastic alternative view.
Speaker 2: Wendy.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and yes, I mean when I ad to customer
Speaker 3: care trading, I say, if you're dealing with, particularly someone
Speaker 3: who's over fifty to fifty five, if you've messed up
Speaker 3: and you want to make it right, pick up the
Speaker 3: phone and phone. The millennials hate that they want to
Speaker 3: talk to you on the phone. It's the worst. But
Speaker 3: for an older person it's going to fix the problem
Speaker 3: and they will forgive you and it will all be good.
Speaker 3: And they all look at me, because it's usually millennials
Speaker 3: in the audience, they look at me wired out like
Speaker 3: they try it. It'll work. I mean, we we and
Speaker 3: I think also even the millennials as they get old.
Speaker 3: I don't know if this will change, but you do,
Speaker 3: especially if your problem is not solvable. It's not Pridge
Speaker 3: and a hoolable that you you know, query one, two, three,
Speaker 3: four five. You just want to have that human interaction
Speaker 3: where he said, this is the problem, please help me,
Speaker 3: without spending ninety minutes going round and round and trying
Speaker 3: to do it the digital way and ending up really
Speaker 3: frustrated and not feeling very warm and fuzzy towards that
Speaker 3: company at all. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The result is you get a customer like Lisa raising
Speaker 1: digital customer service with the Woolworth's My Difference app saying
Speaker 1: trying to deal with one person who knows all the
Speaker 1: des is impossible. You end up getting multiple responses from
Speaker 1: various people trying to follow up on different platforms, and
Speaker 1: all that happens is the customer gets more irritated at
Speaker 1: the end of it instead of just having their issue resolved.
Speaker 2: So thanks for that, Lisa.
Speaker 1: I think we've got time to squeeze in one more
Speaker 1: voice note as well before we must wrap up.
Speaker 6: Let's take a listen, Andre, I just find Discoveries apps
Speaker 6: utterly user unfriendly, and I'm surprised that our user on
Speaker 6: friendly is seeing that it's one of the best technological
Speaker 6: companies in the country. Yeah, so I don't know if
Speaker 6: they know it, but it's really bad and unfriendly bye bye.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: If they don't know it by the end of the
Speaker 1: savord read here, there'll be something wrong now, I must
Speaker 1: they did acknowledge they are having because one of the
Speaker 1: other issues we didn't even get to was when I
Speaker 1: then went onto the app to try and find an
Speaker 1: alternative supplier to move away from the one I'd had
Speaker 1: problems with the sort of geographical settings we're not working.
Speaker 1: So you go in to find a pharmacy near me,
Speaker 1: and it offered me the runts By Pharmacy, which was
Speaker 1: at the time about one hundred and sixty five kilometers away,
Speaker 1: So there clearly are some issues that still need to
Speaker 1: be resolved on the app, and they've acknowledged that in
Speaker 1: their email correspondence. See we are aware of a recent
Speaker 1: issue affecting the Finder Provider feature on the Discovery app
Speaker 1: and WhatsApp where the results have been inaccurate. We apologize
Speaker 1: we're working on a resolution for that. So at Lease
Speaker 1: they're acknowledging awareness of the fact that there is a
Speaker 1: problem there. Wendy, I mean, it's a topic today for
Speaker 1: which we have no fix, no answers, other than to
Speaker 1: hope that customers are listening, and the people listening to
Speaker 1: this interview who are involved in customer service are going
Speaker 1: to feedback to the companies they work for that there
Speaker 1: is a need to balance both. And I don't dispute
Speaker 1: that for some cases moving to digital is brilliant and
Speaker 1: that you can take a large sort of workload off
Speaker 1: your desk and digitize simple functions like issuing the tax certificate,
Speaker 1: the membership confirmation or whatever it is. But I hope
Speaker 1: you know customer service people are paying attention to the
Speaker 1: kind of complaints we've heard today about how that experience
Speaker 1: of forcing people into the digital environment is making them
Speaker 1: feel and Wendy what I'm hearing. It's making people feel unheard,
Speaker 1: unimportant to the company, and ultimately not listened to, and
Speaker 1: it's leaving them more frustrated at the end of the
Speaker 1: experience than they were when the problem first occurred.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Alice put it very well as Alice
Speaker 3: when she said it seems like customer invoidance rather than
Speaker 3: a willingness to engage with customers. And that's really I mean,
Speaker 3: I can't even the synicon me doesn't want to believe
Speaker 3: that that's the intention. But that's for many people, the reality,
Speaker 3: the lived experience. So I think we should all keep
Speaker 3: talking about this. They might be people who think it's
Speaker 3: just them I'm old, and no, it is a general experience,
Speaker 3: and we should keep it in the public discourse, use
Speaker 3: social media, talk about it and shows like this, and
Speaker 3: hold the service providers to account because sometimes they just
Speaker 3: don't have enough of a read on what it's like
Speaker 3: on their receiving end. As a customer, you know, it's
Speaker 3: great technology and it's the latest, greatest, and the end
Speaker 3: misted a lot, but is it actually working for the
Speaker 3: customer and the way they think it is.
Speaker 1: Wendy, thanks so much for a really interesting segment today.
Speaker 1: We look forward to chatting to you again next week Wednesday.
Speaker 1: And reminder to listeners if you want to flag a
Speaker 1: case with Wendy, she does respond to her online form
Speaker 1: at Wendynona dot co dotz chat next week, Wendy