Terence Blacker: Condemned to churn in call-centre hell

It was quiet - too quiet. The peace which had descended on my life over the past few weeks had been sepulchral. The telephone never rang. I was receiving fewer e-mails than usual. Even the internet was a problem; some months ago, I had started paying for broadband but it had proved impossible to activate.

It transpired that this unnatural calm had been caused by a coincidence of technical difficulties. The telephone signal was so weak that, at best, one phone would manage a soft, despairing death-rattle. E-mails from and to me were mysteriously disappearing into cyberspace.

And so, as a result of these fairly typical travails, Darren and Jim have become part of my life, and I have begun to understand the profound frustration and dissatisfaction with our call-centre culture which has just been revealed in a YouGov survey. "The research clearly indicates what customers do and don't like," a bright-spark from a company known as Callmedia has commented. "Companies need to make quality service a priority and take steps to provide good, consistent and timely service in a bid to increase loyalty and reduce churn."

No one has been in greater need of churn-reduction than I have over recent days while trying to deal with the two gigantic organisations, BT and AOL, who have a stranglehold not only over my work and my social life, but also on my sanity. In the past, they have both told me how important I am to them, frequently writing or ringing me to encourage me to make a deeper commitment to them, but, as is so often the case, it has been when things have gone wrong that the truth behind the warm words has been revealed.

Of the technology, it is necessary only to know that neither my silenced phone nor my internet difficulty was my fault. After the visit of five engineers, the BT problem was finally resolved by an electrician. I should be annoyed, yet I have to admit that I am surprisingly unchurned.

The BT call centre rings back rather than requiring me to queue. That simple expression of respect for my time made me almost weep with gratitude. Then, as the problem remained unresolved, my new friend Darren rang. He gave me his name, his direct line to call throughout the techno-nightmare, and occasionally checked the engineer's progress.

By contrast, AOL sent me into the call-centre hell which will be familiar to many. I rang, waited and waited, marvelling several times at the fact that Bert Jansch's 1960's folk classic "Strollin' Down the Highway" was among the songs being techno-busked to those in the queue. When eventually I reached someone, we discovered that my problem could only be resolved by someone at Level Two. That involved another half-hour wait in a queue.

I tried the following evening. I reached Level One. Queued again. Discovered that I was still on Level One. Queued again. At last, I reached Level Two and Jim. In an attempt to cling on the progress I had made, I asked for his second name. He couldn't give me that, he said - security. "Security?" I said. "Why, d'you think I'm a terrorist?" Jim hung up on me. An hour and a half's wait and all I had to show for it was the dialling tone.

There is something humiliating and dehumanising about these experiences. They remind one that, for the cynical creeps who run certain large organisations, the customer only exists as a unit of potential profit and only matters when holding a credit card. It is a very modern and rather sinister expression of corporate power that leaves millions of people churning helplessly every day.

Credit where credit's due

How useful it will be for the adventurous but socially correct young woman to know that, when about to embark on a one-night stand, it is unnecessary to wear pyjamas.

These and other tips relating to contemporary romantic life - the appropriate way to commit adultery, for example - will shortly be available in Debrett's new publication Etiquette for Girls.

As usual, comedy got there first. Much of this advice was to be found 30 years ago in rather wittier, better written form in JP Donleavy's The Unexpurgated Code, a guide to modern manners which ranged from "Upon Being Excluded from Who's Who" to "Upon Ending It All" by way of "Upon Being Caught in Solitary Masturbation".

It would be nice to think that Debrett's have given credit to Donleavy, left, but very often it is those who preach loudest about manners who are first to forget them.

* A surprising amount of tosh has accompanied the 60th birthday of that great BBC institution Woman's Hour. There have been self-congratulatory essays on how far women have progressed. The ever-reliable Mary Kenny, arguing that women are genetically inclined to subservience, turned to a racing expert's account of a filly who was "a fine goer, but as soon as she pulled ahead of the field she would suddenly get second thoughts and fall back with the herd. She didn't want to lead: it was against her nature." James Whale has confessed that he is unable to enter a lift containing a woman for fear of "a misunderstanding".

The time has surely some to admit that the war between the sexes has ended in a no-score draw and that dreary gender generalisations should be given a rest for a while. After six decades, Woman's Hour is overdue for retirement.

terblacker@aol.com