The little saga below is a story of exactly what should not happen with customer service and technical systems. And when it does happen, what should be done by well informed and well trained customer service folk in order to deal with it.
Dear MYKI
I spend at least several hundred dollars per year with you...but the following happened.
You blocked my MYKI travel card because the balance temporarily got below the required minimum. At the time I found out you had blocked my card, there was a $25 balance on the account!
As I was about to travel I had to spend $11 to buy another card.
Then, 3 days later by email, you tell me I have to post the old card to you, and be without it for "a minimum" of two days, so you can physically unblock it.
Every other supplier I have ever dealt with simply trys a card for a second or third time if an initial transaction fails. You clearly did this as there was $25 balance on the card when I found out it had been blocked by you. Yet you still blocked it so it could not be used without physically posting it to you.
(You've just spend tens of millions setting up your whole online ticket system, and yet one still has to use snail mail to post a card to you to unblock it... and I can't even drop into a MYKI office and unblock it... because you don't do such),.
The reality of your inadequately designed system is that I have to buy a new card and register it, as I have done... and spend time and angst dealing with it all, including with your ill-informed customer service person, who told me I would have to close the whole online account, and do more snail mail in order to get the $25 balance back from the old account... rather than just register my new card against the old account (after buying the new card as above).
Your system is a case study in what should not be the case with both customer service and technical systems. Could you perhaps redesign it, train your staff better, and let me know that you are working on it... and perhaps apologise?
Stuart McGill