Great talk. I’m totally behind the idea of the “give a fuck” economy.

We don’t know it yet, but about half an hour ago a train was cancelled. And instead of putting on another train, or adding more carriages to an existing service, the train company has unloaded all those passengers onto our train. I’ve reserved tickets for this train about three months in advance, but it no longer matters because you see, in these circumstances, all reservations are cancelled. That’s right. It’s time for a double disappointment: no reservations for the people on the cancelled train and no reservations for us either.

I’m reminded of Seinfeld: you know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation.

So how do we find out? We find out from the passengers on our train. Somehow the infrastructure of tannoys and station staff have been rendered ineffective. In fact, this is a lie. I have already assumed that my reservations are cancelled because this is not the first time this has happened to me. (A rough estimate would be that out of 20 reserved rail journeys in the last three years, I have lost my reservation 6 times.)

The train is full when we board. This means standing room only. In fact, there are already people standing in the aisles so I can only get as far as the automatic doorway between carriages. This doorway has been designed to close every ten seconds or so but open again if it encounters an obstacle. Now I know what you’re thinking, that would mean that someone standing there would be struck by the door every ten seconds or so, and standing there for three solid hours would be akin to some kind of water torture.

An old woman tries to get past us on her way to the buffet car. She harasses us for taking up room in the passageway. We’re all in this thing together, but some of us are more in it than others.

Standing outside the toilet is not as bad as it sounds, over the years I’ve grown used to the terrible smell of train carriages. Certainly it’s faeces and urine, maybe vomit; my girlfriend says sauerkraut. I am convinced this is what hell smells like: mediocre, like someone who couldn’t be bothered.

Later, when we manage to get a seat, I head along to the buffet car for a hot drink. I know these places are expensive and I understand the economics behind it: you’re paying in part for convenience. My girlfriend has her own teabags – she doesn’t take caffeine – so I ask the cashier for hot water only. But I can’t have this unless I pay £3 for a full cup of tea. So what else can I do?

In her defence, she lets me have the teabag for nothing.

Having worked in customer service I cringe every time I read stories like this because I know what it’s like to be between an angry but reasonable customer and an uninterested bureaucracy. Why is customer service done so badly? It seems like an afterthought, something that a company is forced to do apart from their core business. But in fact, it’s an amazing marketing tool. People only remember the couple of days when things went wrong, not the years of blip-free service. If you can fill those couple of days with amazing service, you can generate customers for life.

Here’s what is wrong with the current approach to customer service (specifically in the UK):

1. You don’t give your representatives any power to solve problems.

Even in organisations that don’t use scripted responses, front-line staff usually can’t do anything outside of a pre-determined scope. The difficulty with this thinking is that customers complain when things go wrong. That means that normal procedures don’t apply. Almost every customer complaint can be solved efficiently by dropping procedure right away and cutting the Gordian knot. Sometimes this requires creativity but often the customer will even tell you how the problem can be solved. It couldn’t be simpler.

2. They’re usually the least knowledgeable people in your organisation.

People who answer the phones aren’t engineers. This is because engineers are busy engineering. I can understand that. What sickens me, is that engineers, managers, CEOs, finance, HR or anyone from any other department would rather take a bullet than talk to a customer for five minutes.

And this isn’t a “training issue”. Believe it or not, training courses aren’t some kind of magic wand that turns minimum-wage phone answerers into physicists.

3. You don’t back them up.

Why do people ask to be transferred to a manager? Because managers hate hassle, and will do anything to exit a conversation. This means that after you’ve spent half an hour defending a terrible policy, your manager will bypass it in the blink of an eye so that he can get back to playing minesweeper. This makes you look like a dick and your manager looks like a “solutions provider”.

4. You bullshit them.

Who is more likely to go along with your stupid corporate policy? Someone whose salary you pay, or a customer who is having a bad day?

You can feed any line to your staff and they will sit there and nod, but a customer isn’t fooled for a second. And your staff will get more and more fed up with explaining something that they know is stupid.

5. You try to save money.

How much do you spend on advertising? Large companies spend thousands to put their name on a board in a sports stadium so that for a fleeting second it registers in the mind of an onlooker.

How much does it cost to post a part to a customer, or to ship their order for next-morning delivery? How much does it cost to say sorry? To refund a week or a month’s subscription? To send them a free gift? People remember these things for a lot longer and they tell their friends and family too.

6. You treat complaints like problems not opportunities.

Do you know what I do when I get crap service? I don’t go back for it. Usually, I don’t say anything, I just don’t turn up again. Every time someone is disappointed in your product or service and tells you about it is a rare opportunity to make your company better. It pinpoints with laser accuracy the problems that your customers have.

If you route these complaints so that you never have to deal with them directly, you’re missing one of the most important business measures you have.