Barclays has been criticised for paying mystery shoppers to pretend to be blind or deaf in an attempt to test the response of branch staff.
The National Federation of the Blind of the UK (NFBUK), which campaigns for blind and partially sighted people, said the bank’s stunt was an “insult” to blind people and “totally inappropriate”.
It comes after Barclays hired research firm Ipsos Mori to find out how branch staff responded to blind and deaf people who came in with queries.
How do you test how well the system works for customers? You fake a customer coming in and see what happens. Getting pretend blind people to try to use banks improves the experience for actual blind people once the report is digested and – mebbe – acted upon.
It’s there in Up The Organisation and therefore is correct. Every exec should try occasionally phoning his own office. To simply see what happens.
Ah, the complaint is “they hired Ipsos Mori and not us”
The NFBUK and it’s equivalent for the deaf should be doing that sort of thing anyway as a service to those they represent not as a money spinning consultancy because then it becomes a business and they lose sight of their purpose. (No pun intended).
This is the same argument as “only a gahyer can play a gahyer character in a film or on stage”
Shouldn’t the NFBUKers be happy that Barclays is trying to ensure a good service for their group?
No pleasing some people…
The National Federation of the Blind of the UK (NFBUK), which campaigns for blind and partially sighted people, said the bank’s stunt was an “insult” to blind people and “totally inappropriate”.
I can’t see why.
How did they find a branch that was open? I can’t. Although the one in Thame I used to go to has changed into a nice caff.
NFBUK PCD. They also award diplomas for successfully completing their professionally offended course….
I’m going deaf and would be delighted if a few people faked deafness to check how well businesses cope.
I’ll tell you how the NHS copes. You go to the hospital, walk into deafness clinic reception, and you can’t hear a bloody thing the birds say because they’ve got a loudspeaker blaring out fucking pop music.
Very, very stupid or, more likely, consciously cruel.
I once went out to lunch in Guildford with a colleague who was doing the “mystery shopper” thing. OK, it was all free because she claimed the money back as her fee, but God, it was embarrassing. She had a set of really precise instructions which involved requesting half-sized portions, vegan mayo, two glasses of water with everything, etc., etc.
The people serving us did brilliantly, but they must have thought us complete loons.
I did it in hte US a bit. Really, just to see what it was like. Fast food and chain restaurants mostly. Fairly fun to do but not as prescriptive as yours seems to have been.
Chernyy Drakon
Reminds me of the ungrateful ex leper in Life of Brian
“There’s no pleasing some people”
“That’s just what Jesus said sir!”
Jesus wasn’t fancy, he brought a packed lunch for everyone.
Is it the blind or deaf activists who are quite happy for two people with wonky genes to produce impaired offspring because it’s part of their community?
Joe,
I’ve heard it’s the vibrantly disposed to familial breeding who are quite happy to increase the number of blind deaf and for bonus points mentally impaired amongst us.
Sure I saw somewhere that per capita expenditure on social care correlates well with how many Muslim peasants are in the area.
Jesus wasn’t fancy, he brought a packed lunch for everyone.
See, one packed lunch goes a looong way – but anyway, didn’t he cop it off some geezer in the audience?
Did anyone ask RNIB?
If you read the NFBUK website you will discover that they have fewer than 2,500 members in the whole of the UK and that none of the Trustees profiles includes a “proper” job (a couple *used to* have one).
So this is a publicity stunt to get attention to a tiny splinter group.
“Every exec should try occasionally phoning his own office”
Since an increasing number of businesses no longer have published phone numbers (they try and push you onto “Web Chat”), this could be rather difficult…
“The people serving us did brilliantly, but they must have thought us complete loons.”
No, they probably clocked that you were mystery shoppers.
Asiaseen – not just some geezer named Brian or something, but his disciples.
It’s not recorded if they had sardines on toast, but I like to think maybe.
NB it would have cost about 200 denarii (or 20 aes) to buy food for that many people, according to Mark. I wonder what you could buy with that money now.
According to Mr Google a silver denari can be bought for about €90 these days. Less in bulk.
This would be wildly different if we were to look at the labour value of that….
Sorry, 2000 aes. Forgive my numismatical misprint.
@Steve A quick search found some evangelicals having done that calculation based on the known price of bread then and 2023 USA.
Seems it amounts to roughly $16k in 2023 US dollars.
Every exec should try occasionally phoning his own office. To simply see what happens.
“Thank you for ringing your own office. Your call is important to us.”
Tim: ‘denarius’ – that’s another few æons in purgatory for some luckless monk.
Grikath said:
“A quick search found some evangelicals having done that calculation based on the known price of bread then and 2023 USA. Seems it amounts to roughly $16k in 2023 US dollars.”
Which is surprisingly close to 200 of Tim’s €90 denarius.
@RichardT Not too surprising, really..
Only way to compare the currencies is to compare equivalent buying power for things you know the price of at both ends. The time periods are simply too far apart to do anything else.
It does help that from what I can read the Denarius was more or less treated like a $100 dollar bill nowadays.
“Valuable” enough to be used as unit for large transactions, but still small enough to be easily broken up into amounts you used for daily groceries.
Until, of course, the denarius got so devalued it became a joke in the latert Roman Empire. But at the time of the Second Temple in judea when the Joshua ben Bethlehem myth is supposed to play out, Rome was still at the height of its power.
I’m surprised about the current value of a denarius. I had a handful of the things back in the 70s. Good condition. Coin dealer offered me 50 pence each for them. Then again 50p would have bought 5 pints of beer? How much is a pint in London now?
I didn’t look around very much. That’s the price for one on E-Bay or summat. 5 pints in London might be £40 these days. So it’s not that far out.