Dealing with my wife's death has highlighted stark differences in customer service: Andy Brown

Hiding or completely removing any company phone number so that you cannot call them saves time and money in answering calls. It doesn’t do wonders for repeat business.

When my wife died back in October I got a lesson in which companies and organisations make it hard to sort out any issues and which ones are helpful. It wasn’t the ones I expected.

The first organisation I dealt with was Lloyds bank where my wife had kept accounts for decades. I expected them to be a faceless organisation and for it to be very hard to find the information about bereavement on a web site that has to cover a huge range of financial issues.

They proved to be a model of how companies should do business. Their website quickly pointed me to clear information about what to do. When I hit a complexity it took me seconds to find the phone number for their bereavement team and they picked up the line within seconds.

A helpful and sensitive member of staff talked me through the next steps and that enabled me to send their business the information they needed in an organised way.

The result was they quickly and probably very cheaply sorted things out and paid what was owed with good grace.

At the same time I tried to deal with Standard Life. Which is a business which I thought was set up to deal with insuring life and helping people when it came to an end. It turned out to be part of a much larger company which proved exceptionally difficult to deal with.

The website pointed me to an online form which I filled out and submitted. I got an automated response telling me they were sorry for my loss and had received the information. Then there was a long silence. So I tried to look for their phone number.

Their “contact us” page steers you firmly away from that option and it took me three lengthy sessions before I found a way of ringing them.

I got through after a byzantine series of questions and delays and managed to speak to the bereavement team. It then became clear that there was a problem. I wasn’t the beneficiary of the policy.

Despite them having acknowledged receipt of a copy of the will which named me as the sole executor the company refused to tell me who the beneficiaries were. I pointed out that I was legally required to find this information and to make sure the beneficiaries got paid. They told me it wasn’t company policy to provide such information.

So I had a bright idea. I suggested to them that I guess who the beneficiaries were as it could only be our children. I pointed out that they had both moved and changed email addresses so the company wouldn’t be able to contact them unless they took the information from the executor of the will.

Fortunately I was dealing with a human being who was prepared to bend company rules a little. She accepted the information I provided. Problem sorted. I thought.

Eventually the company did indeed write to the beneficiaries. It offered them a chance to re-invest in their wonderful range of products or the discouraged alternative of getting paid. Both chose the payment and returned the form promptly.

That was over two months ago. As I write there has been no payment. Requests for information from the company are met with automatic replies. Apparently they understand this is a difficult time for us and they are there to support us. Yet they don’t answer and don’t pay.

Whilst that company has proved clumsy remote and bureaucratic the government’s probate service surprised me on the upside. I expected their processes to be difficult to understand, time consuming and frustrating.

Instead the government website provided sensible information, the form I had to fill in about tax due was relatively easy to complete and the probate form was similarly straightforward. They sent an automatic message back promising to respond within 13 weeks. Two days later they contacted me to point out I’d made a mistake. I corrected that mistake.

I got another message telling me to expect my problem to be sorted within 13 weeks. Less than a week later they sent me the grant of probate.

So the government and some large organisations can still on occasion be very efficient. Why do so many other organisations think they can improve their customer experience by making some of life’s experiences so very hard for the public? And the harsh reality of death an even more difficult time than it needs to be.

Andy Brown is the Green Party councillor for Aire Valley.