Sending it with flowers
IAIN Valiance, British Telecom's chair- man, confronting his most tenacious critic this week, was offered a large bunch of flowers. There was, as he might have expected, a catch in it. The critic is John Lucas, Oxford philosopher, whose long exchanges with Telecom began when his son sent him, from Poland, a telegram which took a week to deliver. Telecom, as is its practice, had posted it to him from Birmingham. Not a man to be wearied in argument, Mr Lucas has proposed to Tele- com's institutional shareholders that they should select a director responsible for the personal customer's interest. Mr Valiance and Mr Lucas met in a Granada studio in Manchester, and the flowers arrived half- way through the interview. They had been sent by Mr Lucas's son, this time from Somerset, to accompany a message which was word for word the same as his telegram from Poland. This time it took three and a half hours. If Interflora find it possible and profitable, Mr Lucas inquired, why not Telecom? Mr Valiance sought to meet his critic, promising improvements. He was appointing managers (but not a director) to look after the personal customer. He would, as from March of next year, guarantee next-day delivery for interna- tional telegrams — which was what Mr Lucas wanted in the first place. There may still be scope for other message-carriers to do better and work faster. I wonder what Interflora would charge for saying it with- out flowers.
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