Tips for Dealing with Bureaucracies

1. Be nice
Whether you are dealing with a corporation that you pay or a government department, being nice will get you further than being rude.

2. Be honest
We all have an inbuilt lie detector of some sort. Skirting around an inconvenient truth will often come back to bite you. If you forgot to pay a bill, just own it and be human.
My business clients generally want to build ongoing relationships with government. In this case, it is even more important to be honest. It is not worth losing the war to win a battle based on incorrect information. You lose credibility and sacrifice relationships.

3. Be human
A few months ago, my credit card was compromised and replaced. I managed to change all my bills over. Except one insurance monthly bill. Every month, I received a robo-email telling me to open and read the attachment, which told me my payment had bounced and my insurance would be cancelled. Every month, I rang and was hung up on, then passed around until someone (supposedly) took my new credit card details.
I felt like I was lost in the system. Eventually, several months later, after being hung up on, I rang the company’s switch. By this time, I was in tears of frustration and I said “I just want to pay my bill. I have been hung up and in a robo-loop for months. Please. Please. Put me through to someone who can help!”
She felt sorry for me. And it was done.

4. Be helpful
Bureaucrats are just people like you and I. Sometimes, you can see something that they can’t. Sometimes, you have access to people or data that they don’t. Ask them how you can help them make the best decision for you and their bureaucracy.

Next time, I’ll share tips 5 through to 8.

This article comes from my column entitled “Here to Help” in Hunter Local, December 2019. If you have an everyday problem just begging for a simple, real world solution, send it to “Here to Help” and let’s see what we can achieve.