Renewing my Driving Licence; and Linda

I got a 12 character Gateway user ID in 2005, in the post, 12 character password in the post separately, activation codes in the post separately.

And even with a smartphone, no NFC. They didn't tell you straight away of course, no, first they ...

in absolute terms only 1% of the population don't have a mobile, the problem is they are mostly in the same age group as most usenet users.

the same with "feature phones". I know very few with feature phones

Dave

But how many people who do have a smartphone, and work and walk around in a big city every day, can guarantee to have a smartphone *every* day?

Oh. 99.99% of them are on the f****ng things 24x7. To the extent they barely know whats going on around them

They even take them to bed I reckon

Didn't somebody produce an 'app' that let a user know what was happening in front of them?

I don't have, nor want, a 'smart' phone. My mobile is called a feature 'phone, I don't know why. It receives and sends calls, it receives and sends texts, and it has a camera on board. QED. That's what I need of a mobile 'phone.

Mine lives on my bedside table overnight. It operates our house security system and I can tell that my EV has fully charged overnight without going out to the car. (in case I need to sort out something)

AOL except I also look at the weather, what 3 words location, and mapping for our ancient car.

My wife has lots of *features* on hers but 95% of her day, it is sat on the kitchen worktop.>

Indeed. And it will be easier and more reliable for making phone calls than a so-called "smart" phone because it has number buttons which you can feel rather than having to guess what button you pressed on the on-screen keyboard with your fat fingers. And it has a button for accepting a call rather than having to swipe the screen in the hope that the phone will respond before going to voicemail.

I have to admit to having a smart phone but I use it mainly for mobile internet access and make very few voice calls on it. But I'm far happier using my proper computer with mouse and full keyboard and screens which I can actually *see*.

So that means that there isn't a problem? I disagree. 1% of the population is over half a million people - for whom everyday services are ever increasingly being made inaccessible. And I would wager that a high proportion of people who *have* got a smartphone will have difficulty negotiating the opaque systems being thrust in their direction. I sometimes lose the will the live when trying to use them - and I've been involved in IT in one form or another for over 60 years!

Hear, Hear!!

I don't get the "swipe up to answer" method. Who thought of that? I had a smart phone that made no mention that you answered a call that way. Quite a difficult operation in any case. Why not just tap the green handset icon? I suppose someone thought it resembled raising a handset on a "real" phone. Nothing like it.

"Dumb" phones were as bad. I bought a Siemens A50 and had to go back to the shop to ask how to turn it on. Who would have guessed that you do it by pressing and holding the red "hang up" key?

Because taps happen by accident in pockets much more easily than swipes.

Anyone who noticed that the red key also had a power symbol on it?

Indeed, but the problem you face is providing services that only 1% of the population use use is relatively expensive and the costs must be recovered in some way, and no one wants to pay more tax.

I believe the problem runs deeper than Smart Phone access. I can remember when there were DVLA offices in Manchester. You could pop in and do ownership changes etc with a person. All gone...

Many businesses seem to see customer service as a drain on resources. So banks close branches. Internet Service Providers don't fix faults, but hope the customer goes elsewhere.

The public lap this up. Just look at how successful Ryan Air is...

Dave

People cost money. At minimum wage, once overheads are taken into account, it's roughly 25p per minute.

In theory people are willing to pay more for customer service, in practice they aren't. Hence all the chatbottery, because it's far cheaper than paying a human.

(To be fair, the chatbots are indeed able to do more things than they used to - eg account closure, which always used to hand you over to a human. They can show you on screen all the legalese the human used to tediously read out and run through all the 'are you really, really, really sure you want to close this account?' steps)

Theo

With public services (so, local authorities, health, education etc.) a rule of thumb* was: cost to employer equals twice gross salary.

• used during union-employer negotiations for example.

Yes, a teeny 1/0 power symbol I noticed afterwards.