I get to a likely sounding one and get that twat Brydon again, he goes on to tell me to listen to the next nine options carefully so they make sure they direct my call to the right department. I chose an option that directed me back to twatty telling me to listen to the next four options so they can ….. Still with me? Brilliant!
Anyway, after listening to Brydon guide me skilfully though all of the options I finally get to speak to a real person, Well I think she was real, she sounded a lot like the other bird from the beginning of the saga.
So forty minutes into what I thought would be a piece of cake!
It sort of went like this,
DVLA,
‘Hello, DVLA Swansea, Jane speaking how may I help you?’
ME,
‘Hi, my name is Q. Anarchist, I’d like to speak to ***** ******* at your local Manchester office, It’s concerning registering an adapted vehicle for use by a disabled rider. The person I need to speak to deals with this sort of thing all of the time. Could I have the local office number please?’
Couldn’t have made it any clearer, I know I was speaking English
.DVLA,
‘ What sort of vehicle is it then?
ME,
‘Trike, Built for use by a disabled rider.’
DVLA,
‘What about it then what do you need to speak to them for?’
ME,
‘Well, I need to find out what forms I need and how to go about it, I did one years ago and want to make sure nothing has changed, I have dealt with ***** on several occasions and know they make sure I get the correct forms.’
DVLA,
‘Oh I can’t do that, I can only send them an email, (I can hear her typing in the back ground and talking in hushed tones as she taps the keys ‘ Register disabled trike advice’) There that’s all done for you, and can I have your number please?’
I had no idea I was trying to register a disabled trike, had a wheel come off?
I gave her the number and was told I should get a call back in two hours.
She asked if there was anything further she could assist me with, I told her I didn’t think so and ended the call.
Now I only live 8 miles from the centre of Manchester, the DVLA office is right next to Old Trafford. I could have lunch, take a dump, brew up and still have the time to get to Manchester, knock on *****’s office door and ask her for the bloody forms myself all inside of two sodding hours.
The whole bloody system has tier on tier of fucking banal bureaucracy, you can’t speak to real people doing the job but have to talk to someone who works in a call centre that doesn’t actually work in the department you need.
It’s just plain stupid to remove the numbers of local offices from government websites, I should be able to contact the people who I know, know what they are doing so I don’t have to ring up and listen to Rob boring fucker Brydon take me through menu after bloody menu of lists of options.
It’s taken the best part of forty minutes to get to the point of knowing I am no closer to getting a few bloody forms put in the post than I was over forty minutes ago.
I’m fed up to the back teeth with the world being run by automated call systems and call centres that have bugger all to do with the person you are trying to contact.
Now some of you may think I’m being a bit picky and making a fuss for no reason, being a computer literate chap I could just download the forms from the DVLA website. You’d be right, I could but that’s not the point. There are thousands of folk who may need to contact the DVLA for information or forms that don’t have internet access and need to use the phone.
I had been invited to take part in the customer survey but I didn’t bother, the powers that be wouldn’t have like many of my answers based on today’s service.
As it transpired, I did get a call back, two and a half hours later when I’d already left the building so to speak, from some bloke who could barely speak English who didn’t leave a number so I drove in the following day and did it the easiest way. I went down and spoke to the person I knew, the one I knew, knew what she was doing. The only reason it took half an hour was because I had to queue up because they have a new customer service system in place. It’s no better than the old one as far as I could tell, it just took you to the customer service desk via a different route. It’s probably best to go yourself if you need any sensible information quickly.
Now I have the correct forms it should be a piece of piss to sort the registration out under the dispensation for disabled riders but that’s another story for another day.
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