Small biz breaks out pen, paper after Brit tax collectors' Digital Form Service goes down The taxman's Digital Forms Service, intended to allow small businesses in the UK to submit returns online, has been down for maintenance since the beginning of the week – forcing SMEs to use pen and paper. The service is intended to provide a digital replacement for all appropriate HMRC print and post forms, a key part of the …
Tax payers don't buy anything from you.
You don't sell them anything.
It's a LEGAL obligation for tax payers to hand you money and/or fill out your turd forms online and offline.
Tax payers can't 'shop elsewhere': You have an absolute monopoly on the service you provide.
So.... please can someone tell HMarse stop with the 'customer' rubbish.
"A former prison officer I know used to refer to inmates as 'customers'. Similar usage, I guess."
"Ditto for a policeman and a social worker I used to know."
I forgot to add. Both used the term with tongue firmly in cheek, and a smile.
It was fully acknowledged that "their customers" had zero choice in the matter :-)
I suppose it goes back to the brief time, long ago, when it became very smart to have good customer service. If you didn't call people customers you missed out on being able to claim wonders for your customer service. As we all know customer service quickly became a cost to be outsourced to the cheapest, worst vendor, all in the interests of winning the race to the bottom but in the meantime the "call 'em customers" habit stuck.
That's one interpretation. I came up with a different one back in those same far-off days, waiting on Marylebone station for BR to find enough working DMUs to get a train together that would last long enough to get out of the station. There were occasional announcements addressed to "customers". I decided that calling them "passengers" carried slightly offensive connotations - it was an alternative term for someone not doing their share of the work. "Travellers" was clearly inapplicable as the whole problem was that nobody was able to travel and "intending travellers", whilst honest, would be embarrassing to BR. "Customers" was OK - after all we might be buying something in one of the shops on the concourse.
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