Service in Barbados is certainly on the decline.
I’ve said publicly many times that I dread having a medical emergency in my family. With recent budget cuts at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, I assume the situation will worsen, although – from my experience in the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department – I would say that some of the problems are caused by lack of a proper system and uncaring attitudes rather than lack of funds.
Thankfully, there are private alternatives to the A&E, but these experiences aren’t always positive either. Sometimes you seem to have to collapse before you’re taken notice of, but the actual care is excellent.
In all emergency departments, shouldn’t there be immediate assessment by a competent person, after which prioritization of cases can be made sensibly? But the word emergency is clearly not in the Barbadian dictionary, as was demonstrated by the lifeguard who allegedly didn’t want to get his clothes wet.
But my dread has now spread to my landline or Internet failing. I start by praying that by some miracle it will “recover” without my having to contact the “robots” at LIME. When prayers were not answered recently and I had to make that dreaded call, I was told that the expected date for repair would be almost a month after my report was made. I couldn’t believe it, but two weeks have passed and far from improving, the phone has gone from being so noisy it was useless to being completely “dead”; and I’m also without my Internet service. Of course, I’m expected to pay for a service which I’m not receiving and hope to get a refund.
Then there’s the major foul-up with the Telephone Directory but LIME seems reluctant to accept responsibility. In spite of outsourcing their services, they must still accept the final responsibility.
What also irritates me is the annoying music and promotional material forced on you while awaiting LIME agents to respond. I was recently in Canada when my email, after working perfectly for two weeks, suddenly locked me out. I used an entire phone card, without being able to speak to a human. All the while, I was being encouraged to “Make it LIME”. Why should I? I, like many others I assume, am waiting patiently to “Make it Flow”.
It seems as if the Fair Trading Commission has the service of Cable & Wireless and the Barbados Light & Power Company (BL&P) under scrutiny. Hopefully, that scrutiny will bring positive results for customers. At one time the BL&P represented the epitome in service, but over the years, although it hasn’t reached the depths of LIME, it has slipped. When I queried what I considered to be an excessive bill recently, first of all I didn’t find the customer service agent very willing to listen, and then I was first given a time of two days, then five days, then nine days for the meter to be checked. In the meantime, if you do not pay the bill being questioned, you receive a threatening “Urgent Notice”.
And the deterioration in service is not limited to the above. While in Canada, I also called my insurance company which has served me well over the years. It was 10:30 a.m. but I repeatedly heard from the PBX: “Our hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. . . . . If it is an emergency please call . . . .” I called the number and got a recorded message. I finally managed to contact someone who gave me a direct number to an agent.
I’m a strong supporter of local manufacturers, but they can often be very disappointing. They seldom stick to an arrangement so you’re forced to turn to imported products. Some are coming to look at a job and after a year has passed and you call them, they claim they couldn’t find your home. Well trained artisans are difficult to come by, in spite of having two training institutions and times are supposedly “hard”.
I’m assuming that foreign investors living in Barbados must suffer the same fate, so if we expect to compete in the international business arena, where we’ve already lost some of our tax advantage, we had better “pull up our socks” and let proper service be our hallmark.
• Dr Frances Chandler is a former Independent senator.