It's not just Germany though. The UK is absolutely obsessed with making phone calls. Lots and lots of completely useless phone calls. Most of them could easily be replaced by an online booking system. Others serve no purpose at all, because all that's required is for them to take some action.
Same with US corporations. I recently tried to sign up for Microsoft's partner network because that's required for an Office 365 integration I was interested in. But I wasn't able to complete their byzantine signup process because there's a bug in the user interface that prevents me from confirming the tax status of my company. It's a simple bug, completely unrelated to the specifics of our company.
I wrote to them asking them to fix the bug so I can proceed. Predictably, they want to talk on the phone. They left some unintelligible message on my voicemail. Then they sent me an email saying they needed additional information from me without saying what that information was. They just want me to reply to arrange a time for a phone call.
Can't comment on the UK / Germany comparison directly, but I still continue to be pleasingly surprised by the quality of access to functions provided by gov.uk. E.g. I recently renewed my passport wholly online, registered my car, checked that the Govt had a record of my car's MOT (roadworthyness) certificate, etc.
I never really appreciated gov.uk until I moved to France. Here nothing is online, you need to take days off work to stand in line and collect paperwork.
A few years behind whom, though? Consumer banking in the UK is eons ahead of America, and the UK has had a very dynamic and competitive consumer phone sector for years.
Having lived in both the England and the US, I'd say that England's cities feel a few years behind American cities in terms of tech, but their rural areas seem a few years ahead of America's rural areas. I can't speak to other parts of the UK, but the gap in America is absolutely huge.
In which way is banking behind? Within EU, you can transfer money for free. You can automate your monthly payments or let companies draw the money. What else is there to offer?
Try to get a French company (take its largest insurer for instance) to send a transfer to elsewhere in the EU. They'll insist on sending cheques (which can't be cached outside of France). I'm still waiting on my refund two years later.
Same in Switzerland. Ordering mechanical components without a phone call or at least email exchange is often impossible. In some ways that's useful, you get free expert consultancy, but sometimes I feel like they almost don't want to sell their stuff. Like you need to ask an employee just to get the price. And even then they often can't tell you immediately.
> But I wasn't able to complete their byzantine signup process because there's a bug in the user interface that prevents me from confirming the tax status of my company.
Dito here, the solution is to validate your domain in Business Intelligence. No I am not joking. My email is in profile, I'll send you the process.
Same with US corporations. I recently tried to sign up for Microsoft's partner network because that's required for an Office 365 integration I was interested in. But I wasn't able to complete their byzantine signup process because there's a bug in the user interface that prevents me from confirming the tax status of my company. It's a simple bug, completely unrelated to the specifics of our company.
I wrote to them asking them to fix the bug so I can proceed. Predictably, they want to talk on the phone. They left some unintelligible message on my voicemail. Then they sent me an email saying they needed additional information from me without saying what that information was. They just want me to reply to arrange a time for a phone call.
I lost interest.