Spin Doctors needed

I was listening to people rant about Eskom this morning, and it made me consider putting my viewpoint down for the betterment of people, and spin doctors everywhere. This whole debacle could have been handled so much better.

Yes, I'm aware that better management would have gone a long way to ensuring the mess never occured in the first place, but the milk is spilled, the coal burned or soaked, and the power out - so no use crying over it. Let's look at how to handle the situation from a crisis management point of view.

How much easier it would have been had the communication from Eskom been humble and contrite instead of bullyish and brash? If the word from the company had been along the lines of: "We fucked up. Sorry. We're working on fixing it, but we need your help." Instead they went with: "We can't give you enough you greedy bastards, reduce what you use now or we'll cut it off."

I have no issue with implementing measures to save electricity. In fact, I applaud them. I take truck with being told that it is my fault. Eskom initially went with the "help us" mode of communication, but then decided to threaten. My favourite part of this saga was the radio ad which said: "Due to customer's failure to save enough electricity we have had to implement load shedding again." No word of Eskom's failure to produce enough for the consumer to use.

I'm not trying to lay blame on government, or the parastatal. I'm pointing out that the problem lies not with the consumer but with the provider. In all service industries, even if the customer made the mistake, he didn't. How much more does this hold true when the customer didn't do anything wrong in the first place?

To strain the restaurant analogy further: We have a situation where the customer ordered sixteen hard boiled eggs, and got served 6, and is now being told it is his fault that there aren't any eggs left. Would you eat there again? What if it was the only choice?

For too long, companies that serve the average South African have given poor service and it has been ignored. It's high time that the situation changes.