jgxenite wrote on Sep 4^th, 2007 at 3:22pm:


Careful jgxenite.

Surely you mean that they are one of the very commendable few multinational companies operating in the UK that don't scam the public with 084/7 numbers.

There seem to be two main themes to the larger companies that do not exploit their customers with 084/7 covert premium rate numbers.:-

(a) They are American owned and continue the American phiosophy that any contact with your customer is a way to build your relationship with them and possibly sell them new services.  Why therefore try to alienate your customer by trying to steal from him if he is good enough to give up his/her valuable time to contact you.

(b) They are commercial but not do not have normal greedy commercial shareholders interested only in the short term and treating their customers like so much disposable chaff.  Companies that spring to mind are Building Societies like Nationwide and partner
owned organisations like John Lewis.

On top of the above the majority of smaller commercial UK companies who rely on repeat businesss from loyal long term customers also tend to avoid 084/7 numbers the in the majority of (but by no means in all) cases.

Kingston mainly works through resellers rather than direct to the public so I don't suppose direct customer calls are a major business issue for them.

Credit card issuers MBNA probably still top the league of anti 084/7 large companies for having all 0800 contact centre numbers (sales, customer service etc) anda geographic number for calling from overseas or mobiles also provided.  Plus the quality of their customer advisers and their empowerment to resolve problems for customers is second to none in the call centre industry.

jgxenite wrote on Sep 5^th, 2007 at 7:05pm:
That can be rare these days.  I'm also suspicious when they say things like that and the, "we'll call you back...", line   

I used to deal occasionally with Kingston at my last job.  They were always very helpful and obviously knew their stuff.  I can't recall a single instance I had a problem with them.

Not all US companies also trading in the UK take the enlighted attitude to developing good relationships by operating NGNs.  Dell computers allow toll-free numbers to be used in just about every country in the world in after-sales contacts.   But guess what!   The UK division requires contact through an 0870 number.   That should tell us something about our uniquely British culture to accepting such opportunistic greed.   I operate a policy of never contacting 0870 numbers and, whenever I'm on the internet, letting the company know via their web site that they've lost business because of their greed.  If the battle against NGNs is to be won then it is essential to make the purveyors of these numbers aware of the consequences to them.   Sending petitions to government department, as we have already noted in the case of No 10, simply adds insult to injury in their two-faced and deviant responses.    Have you noticed Mr G. Brown's recent conduct? He's actually implying that the corrupt past practices and policies within the Labour government are gone and that he's now the man for the job.  But wasn't he a major part of the previous corrupt system?  And if he was a man of conviction what happened to those convictions when he was No 2 to Bliar?

Maxadolf