Originally published in the Business Post.

"Sending a chief executive to get shouted at in a call centre for half a day a week would have a far bigger impact on service quality than net promoter scores

Eir is quite good at customer care. The company’s average call-answering time is two minutes and the number of customers who complain is less than 0.01 per cent, according to Oliver Loomes, its chief executive.

Loomes’ claims about the quality of Eir’s service were broadcast by Joe Duffy on Liveline this week.

Duffy wove audio recording of Loomes’ positive numbers between livid callers alleging that their grannies had been wrongly put in Stubbs Gazette as an indigent debtor despite owing Eir no money, or how they had cancelled their account only to receive years of threatening letters, or how they had made call after call trying to get their line fixed, to no avail.

So hard was it to square Oliver Loomes’ statements with the experiences being outlined that Joe ended the show exasperated, pleading into the void: “Oliver? Are you there? Oliver?”

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