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Ms B A Leach of Leach Printers & Signs in Louis Trichardt sent in the following open letter, addressed to the municipal managers of the Makhado and Vhembe municipalities:

I am writing to you as a business owner. In our business, we provide a service to our clients. This service comes at a price and we expect our clients to pay for it. It is therefore our responsibility to ensure that our clients – whose business we value and appreciate - receive their invoices and statements timeously. We respect and do not expect our clients, and I reiterate, whose business we value, to have to telephone our accounts department to find out how much money they owe us – let alone have to get in their cars and drive to our business to get this information.

Sending out statements is surely recognised as an acceptable efficient, professional business practice and one that has been in existence since the practice of commerce began.

My questions to you are:

* Why is it not possible to adopt this very routine procedure into your accounting practices at the Louis Trichardt / Vhembe Municipal offices?

* Why do we have to phone your offices EVERY MONTH to find out what we owe you? Why, if we cannot get anyone responsible on the other end of the phone, do we have to get into our cars, drive to your offices, stand in a queue, to get a copy of a statement – all at our cost and inconvenience, to find out what we owe you?

* Why are we, as your regular paying customers, not treated as valued customers and accorded a professional attitude? Don’t you value our business? Would you prefer it if we were off the grid?

Surely, in these days of electronic computer systems, these accounts could be emailed to customers, at a tick of a box on the programme. We have to beg for our accounts to be emailed to us and this has happened only once – in December.

I might add that I have dealings with the Greater Tzaneen Municipality. Every month I receive an up-to-date emailed statement on the 3rd of every month and payment is due by the 25th of that month.  This is followed up later in the month with a hard copy, posted statement. When I do have a query with them, it is handled efficiently over the phone. Could you not investigate and adopt their system?

It is today the 22nd  of May, and we are still waiting for our accounts.

We cannot afford not to pay on time as, amazingly enough, your notice to cut our supply is very prompt in being delivered to our premises.

May I suggest that perhaps the efficient department that runs the ‘cutting off supply’ should also run the accounts department; maybe things will improve?

I look forward to your explanation, but more so, I long to hear that your system, procedures and staff, wherever the problem might lie, will be updated or replaced in order to provide an accurate, efficient, professional service to us long-suffering, regular, paying customers.

If this change could be accompanied by friendly service, that would be the best light at the end of this very dark tunnel we find ourselves in.

 

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

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