‘Customer’ care
I was somewhat taken aback at my local job centre after being referred to as a “customer”. I feel that this is an inappropriate word to replace the term “claimant”. As benefit claimants we do not have the choice to take our business elsewhere, as a customer would.
And if we were customers, after the way the majority of staff in these establishments treat their “customers” with rudeness and disdain the place would shut down in weeks.
To the executive who thought this politically correct term up I would say start treating your claimants the way a business would treat customers, with respect and a commitment to customer care, or abolish the term and go back to the correct original term of claimants, because that is what we are.
Gordon Kennedy
Simpson Square