Moving shop (7)

Internet selfservices

When you start moving shop, selfservices might come in handy. You tell the companies that you are moving with the company, declare your old address and register the new address. You can fill out forms with the last meter registration of electricity and other services.

Well, selfservices are a disaster. They are a real nuisance in the communication with companies. Here is just a shortlist:
Newspaper. We passed the request to have the financial daily, Het Financieele Dagblad (FD), delivered on the new address through internet more than three weeks before the move. But on the requested day there was no newspaper. A telephone call to the customer service of FD makes clear that the message either has not arrived with the customer service or has just gone astray.
The old electricity company. We had informed Eneco of our move by using their internet selfhelp service. It worked as we received a letter to be signed. But Eneco automatically assumes that you love them for life. We, however, did not have any warm relationship with that company, so why should we continue the agreement from another address. So we wanted to terminate the contract and move to another electricity company. So I had to get on the phone and get everything straightened out.
Old cable company. As we move out of the region of Casema, we will have to terminate the cable subscription. Casema offers two options on its site: moving and changing subscription. We found out that moving is intended for people moving in Casema country. If you move out of the region you will have to change subscription. The internet registration is followed by a telephone call, telling us that we will have to send Casema proof of moving outside Casema country. When we asked what kind of proof they wanted, the call center worker did not know; that was our problem.
New cable company. We had selected UPC to be the triple play company. So we send in an application form. After a few days we are called by UPC as the application could not be accepted. The people from whom we bought the apartment and suite have not handed in their termination. So the company is very sorry, but will have to throw away this application. The advice is to get the other people to terminate the contract and start the procedure all over again. The same data were needed at a renewed application.

We encountered two services, which scored rather well. There was only one application which went okay. Nuon, the new electricity company, received the application by internet an confirmed the application by letter. Two days after receiving the letter, we got a phone call from a bureau checking whether the application had been handled well.

The moving service of a Dutch postal service TPG, part of TNT, centrally informs many companies of the change of address. Although it can be improved in navigation and content, it is a helpful service.

But for us it is clear that internet selfservices should be improved dramatically in their service and their scripts.

Tags: selfservice

Blog Posting Number: 456