My wife and I just want something simple done: we want our driveway levelled off, so it’s not so steep that we can’t get our cars up it (currently it scrapes the front of them).
I first emailed our council about this – wanting to have it flattened and enquiring about planning permission – on 6th December (bear with me – there’s a point to all this).
Hearing nothing back, I emailed again on 2nd January. I also paid a £30 fee for a planning application.
I was directed to the ‘Planning Portal’, so started filling out a form.
Finally, I thought ‘sod this’, and called the council. After being put through to three different people, I was told it didn’t sound like I needed planning permission (or to fill forms), and the £30 should be refunded.
A colleague then replied to my email from Dec 6th/2nd Jan, saying that I need to go to the county council instead, and get a licence for the work to be carried out.
I went to the county council website, but it just has stacks of forms to fill in… I’m going to call them, as I haven’t got a clue what to do.
This feeling of being given the runaround, or ‘I can’t be arsed’, is the same feeling people get if:
A brand keeps them on the phone for ages, for a simple request – passing them from department to department
A brand has reams of block content on its website, banging on about this, that, and the other
A brand has a really difficult to navigate website, with content buried deep, on obscure pages
A brand sends a DM piece that’s four pages long (one charity was guilty at Christmas).
Don’t give people a reason to switch from your company to another, or ‘bounce’ quickly from your website, or put your DM straight in the recycling.
Have a think – look at your brand as if you were a consumer.
