What Bad Form!

(My wife, working in the community, had a “small business” contract with a major mobile phone provider. Her job changes to working in a residential unit, and so therefore no longer needs to use the facilities of the “small business” contract as her call volume drastically reduces. She contacts the provider, and the person she speaks to says: okay, not a problem; we can sort that out for you; consider that done. She has just logged onto her account to use some of the facilities that she enjoys, and is dismayed to find that these facilities have “not yet been enabled for a small business account.” So she rings them up.)

Wife: “I just tried to do [Function] but was told I could not do so because I have a small business account. But I specifically told your operative that I wanted to change to a personal account.”

Helpdesk: “Yes, well, you can’t just change the account type over the phone. You have to fill out a form.”

Wife: “Why was I not told this when I applied in the first place?”

Helpdesk: “That is not my concern. You have to download the form from our website, print it out, scan it back in, then email it back to us.”

Wife: “But I haven’t got a working printer. I never use a printer. Why would I want to fork out to get a new printer just to print your form out? Can’t you just send me a copy of this form by snail mail?”

Helpdesk: “We don’t do that any more. Everything is online now.”

Wife: “Well, can’t I just download the form, fill it in electronically, and then email it back?”

Helpdesk: “No, you have to print it out and scan it back in; you can’t do it any other way.”

Wife: “Since I can’t do that without getting a new printer, which I completely don’t want to do at the moment, I’m going to have to take my business elsewhere. You’ve just lost a loyal customer of years’ standing.”

(When she rang off, I told her she should have demanded to escalate the problem to a supervisor or a manager, because that sounded wrong to me. How can it not be possible for such a high-tech company not to have an online form that could be filled in online and processed completely automatically?)