For years, the media have bemoaned Britain’s productivity crisis. The country hasn’t become significantly more efficient at producing goods and services in the 16 years since the financial crisis. It seems a complex riddle. Why is the UK falling behind our international rivals? is it our newfound love of working from home? Or is a chronic lack of investment to blame?

Three poor customer experiences in the past week make me think we’re overthinking the problem. Too often companies screw up the simplest things – such as an online booking service. As a result, customer and company spend unnecessary time fixing the problem.

Case study 1: Everyman

I’m a big fan of Everyman. I love stretching out on a comfy cinema sofa while watching a great film, nursing a coffee. As a member, I can book a second, free ticket on Mondays. Today’s the first Monday I’ve had the chance to enjoy this 2 for 1 offer. But the website made it impossible to book.

I selected my member’s ticket – one of the six tickets a year under the cheapest membership package. I then chose the 2 for 1 ticket for my wife, and selected our chosen sofa. So far, so good. But the system wouldn’t allow me to check out without choosing a third seat. I tried every variation, but nothing worked. In the end, I phoned Everyman and a helpful person booked the tickets for me.

Solution: Everyman, fix the website bug, so your customer service people don’t have to spend time booking tickets that should be available online. You will also avoid people giving up, and not buying food and drink from your cinemas.

Case study 2: GoPro

I bought a new GoPro 13 action camera earlier this month. (Highly recommended, by the way.) It came with a year’s free GoPro Premium subscription, which includes cloud storage of GoPro footage. But when I tried to set up automatic upload of my videos, it told me to buy a subscription. I called GoPro, and was assured that everything was set up correctly. But 10 days later, I’m still being prompted to buy a subscription. I’m going to have to call again – a complete waste of my time and that of the GoPro customer service team.

Solution: GoPro, fix the glitch that stops my subscription showing up on your system. And make sure your agents look into things more carefully, rather than simply saying everything is set up when it clearly isn’t.

Case study 3: Wales & West Housing

We’ve been trying to sell my late father’s flat in Wales for over a year. It’s part of a block for older people managed by Wales & West Housing. I’ve told the company repeatedly that no one is living in the house, and to send all letters directly to me for a quicker response, given I live 150 miles away in England. Needless to say, this never happens. In July, I received a redirected letter telling me that an engineer would be visiting to carry out the annual gas safety check. I called to tell Wales & West that the engineer should gain access via the estate agent handling the sale. A couple of weeks later, I got another redirected letter – above – saying the engineer called at the flat but couldn’t gain access – having ignored my instruction.

I called Wales & West again, repeating what I’d told them already. Yet again, I got a letter saying an engineer had called and found no one at home, and threatening legal action. This time, I emailed Wales & West chief executive Anne Hinchey, who took the necessary action. (Thanks, Anne.)

As a result of this saga, an engineer wasted time on two fruitless visits – and the chief executive and I also wasted time that could have been used more productively.

Solution: Wales & West, make sure your people act on instructions, sending correspondence to the right address and not sending an engineer to an unoccupied flat.

Get it right, first time

We can all think of similar examples of time wasted because of a faulty website, customer service teams not taking responsibility for an issue – and a host of other reasons why life’s tasks don’t run smoothly. That’s why it’s so important for companies to fix issues when they arise. In my PR career, I often got emails from unhappy customers, and always passed these on promptly to someone who could help. Getting things right first time is essential to being efficient – and makes for happy customers. It’s also a quick win in solving Britain’s productivity crisis.