Dehumanising customer relationships

Anyone spotting a theme here? over the last few days I've been angered by humans acting like computers at 3 over my bill dispute (see previous post today).
I'm now dreadiing opening each bill from a large company because each time I seem to discover another example of a company trying to screw its customer - and then employing humans to act as machines when challenged.
Tonight's example comes from the Halifax. My payment for my credit card bill had, apparently arrived a day late.
I pay the bill with onine banking from an account with another bank. I had set up the instruction to give it the requisite four days to travel through the banking system (and will someone, somewhere please explain to me why that's still necessary when all that's being transferred is a notional value carried in digital form?).
A Bank Holiday screwed up the calculation. The punishment for my crime was to be charged a £12 'late fee'.
I called to object, pointing out I've been a model customer for them for many long years and had made every effort to pay on time on this occasion.
No joy. The poor employee - reading out the script - is clearly told they must stick to the line no matter what the logic of the argument they are met with, no matter what the quality of the customer.
It's their customer policy not to refund late fees.
Let me tell you. it's not a customer policy at all. I asked how much my late payment had actually
cost. Couldn't answer.
I guessed in the region of a couple of quid. And for this, you are willing to end your relationship with a model customer? How much more is it going to cost you to recruit the next one? Staggering!
But this is the state of customer 'relations' in large companies today. Essentially they are automated. When you want to talk to a person, their response is automated too (they have to stick to their line). The very people who are best positioned to maintain the relationship with the customer have no power to respond to the customers needs.
In other words, companies no longer have ANY relationship worthy of the word with their customers.

On this occasion, a right-thinking manager over-ruled the person I originally spoke to. My penalty fee is going to be refunded.

But I am left with a bad taste.

How much better if the CRM they employed in the first place actually referred to my record with them before instantly landing me with a penalty? How much better if someone had called to discuss before doing it rather than slamming me with the bill and forcing me to call them?

How much better if the person I had to complain to could actually act with some autonomy.

These companies are centralising control just at the time the rest of the world is decentralising it

No wonder they are rubbing their 'customers' up the wrong way.

Google goes mobile with checkout

Here's something to throw into the mix of enabling networks of social prosumers - and potentially a challenge/opportunity for those seeking to move along value chains.
Mobhappy (see feeds, left) reports that google checkout can now be integrated with WAP.
So you can add it to your mobile site. And it trumps paypal mobile by opening the way for paying for digital content using it (while paypal mobile has focused on person-to-person payments and payments for goods).

The power of the network: For doctors and cops

Networks create value. It's the lesson of Reed's Law (Group Forming Network Theory, see resources) and one which is repeatedly being demonstrated by the success of numerous social networking sites.
Ubiquity, allowing the constantly connected community, makes the value still greater.
And often it seems we talk about the business benefits of this model - the way it enables a new ecology of co-creators - converged prosumers (see Media is the New Way of Doing Business).
But there are other, more transparently beneficial, areas the same thinking should be applied to.
I'm thinking of the medical profession, police forces - education, too?
Anyone going through medical treatment will know you'll see a succession of highly trained individuals. Typically you'll have to describe your symptoms over and over. Typically it gets written down on paper. And while professionals within a department or even at a certain strata within that department, may discuss case studies, they won't connect with others on the other side of the same hospital (or even 'above' and 'below' themselves) - who may have seen the same patient previously or learned something useful from another experience with a patient.
Imagine if doctor A had shared with doctor B about patient X. And symptom Y rang a bell for doctor B because he'd shared with doctor C on a previous occasion. Simply, allowing for emergent intelligence in the network should result in more accurate, swifter diagnoses. That cuts costs for the medical service and heals the patient faster.
Win/Win - new value created by the network.
If networks of professionals beat the best individual professional in predicting the stock market (see Reingold's Smart Mobs), shouldn't they also be better at healthcare? At policing? At educating our children?