Strategic partnership signed with David Lloyd Leisure

FOLLOWING a successful launch in 2021, Reckitt’s Dettol Pro Solutions - Dettol’s business-to-business offering - has announced the expansion of its partnership with David Lloyd Leisure. The partnership will see all UK clubs provided with sanitisers and biodegradable disinfectant wipes.

Since launching in 2021, Dettol Pro Solutions has partnered with a large number of businesses to help keep public areas hygienically clean, through high quality products and science-backed protocols. Through its partnership with David Lloyd Leisure, it will offer its well-known products to the members and team at 100 clubs in the group’s UK portfolio.

Jonathan Weiss, commercial director at Reckitt Global Business Solutions, said: “This year has been slated as one of growth across many industries including health and fitness. A partnership with Dettol Pro Solutions provides wide-ranging insight relevant to the industry - from hygiene to meeting customer expectations - helping businesses to plan for the future and mitigate changing circumstances.”

WWW.RECKITT.COM

Stan Atkins, Group CEO, BICSc, reports

Is anybody there?

If, like me, you have found it difficult to speak to a human being, I’m afraid the situation is only going to get worse. I have had varying experiences with customer service portals, from very good to downright awful. So, to start with, one of the best.

Approximately five years ago, I lost my Boots Advantage Card. As I had collected several points, I did not want these to go to waste so I went into my local Boots and the sales assistant printed off a receipt with just a telephone number on it and asked me to phone the number and they would be happy to replace the card and the points. I phoned the number and it was a fully automated service.

As it happened, there were two Mr. S. Atkins at my address at that time, but the fact that they asked for my date and place of birth meant that within four days, and without actually having spoken to anyone, I received a new card. If only this were true for some of the other customer services portals that I have dealt with.

I am reminded of the Mattel ‘Chatty Cathy Doll’ that had, from memory, about 11 phrases which it kept repeating. Unfortunately, dealing with a chatbot (at the most basic level, a chatbot is a computer program that simulates and processes human conversation - either written or spokenallowing humans to interact with digital devices as if they were communicating with a real person) is rather like the ‘Chatty Cathy Doll’ as they only have a certain selection of phrases they can repeat. If you want to see how limited they are, ask them ‘What hat size are you?’ You get some extraordinary answers and none are correct.

Everybody has their own story of trying to book a doctor’s appointment. Some people who have been unfortunate enough to have to dial 999 have had to wait more than 15 minutes to get an answer and up to eight hours for an ambulance (I think both fall well outside the agreed SLAs). Some people, like myself, like to talk to another human being when making appointments, or even placing an order. Booking a doctor’s appointment is like running an obstacle course. My own particular practice tells me how important I am as a patient and advises me not to be rude or abusive to the staff as, if I was, they would terminate the call. Then they proceed to give me three choices: press 1 for receptionist, press 2 if your condition is life threatening, (hang up and dial 999 - please see note above) and press 3 for pharmacy. Approximately nine times out of ten, the message then says: ‘All of our receptionists are busy, please dial back later’.

Last week I thought I had won the lottery when the message said: ‘You are 37th in the queue’. Over 40 minutes later I spoke to the receptionist who said they would get someone to phone me back. The doctor called me after lunch to discuss my symptoms and said he would get back to me, so no wonder the pharmacists are run off their feet and A&E departments in hospitals cannot cope.

I will not even begin the story of when I tried to top up my Oyster Card, however, often when you do get through to a person they, too, are reading from a script or a flowchart and do not fully understand their products or service.

For further information, please visit: WWW.BICS.ORG.UK and the BICSc Virtual Training Suite at WWW.BBS-VIRTUAL-TRAINING.THINKIFIC.COM

If you prefer, you can call us on 01604 678710 during office hours.

Raymond Martin