The voucher companies' administrative systems leave so much to be desired.
They send late or no information back up, either e-mail or written, to enable us to attribute payments to carers. They make bulk payments for a number of different customers in one transaction, leaving us to try to guess whose is whose.
Paper vouchers are the worst. They take up to three weeks to process and be in our nursery account.
Like Jan Anderson, we feel we must take voucher payments in order to compete with other nurseries. However, given the choice, we would rather not accept them.
Parents should be made aware of the additional administrative work involved. Should we perhaps start making a surcharge to parents using vouchers?
It is unacceptable in this day and age to have computer systems which are clearly not suited to their purpose. Customers would not accept such poor customer service in any other walk of life. So let's start putting pressure on these voucher companies to provide acceptable levels of customer support.
Lindsay Gillespie, manager, Claylands Nursery, Edinburgh
