“Customer service” of the Orwellian type
It costs money to hire people to answer phones, even if they live in Bangladesh or wherever they tend to be these days.
So websites that pretend to have customer service actively discourage phone calls.
The first way they do it is to hide the phone number at the site. Click on “contact,” and first they want you to read their “relevant” articles, wasting time because the articles are nearly always completely and utterly irrelevant.
Or, they encourage route you to email, getting robotic “help” messages in several frustrating back-and-forths that are unintelligible and also irrelevant and annoying.
Then when you finally locate the phone number at the site (after trying several places to click, like a treasure hunt) the message on the phone says that “due to high call volume there will be a wait, so use our chat instead.” But that’s often a lie told just to discourage you. The last time I called and then heard that message, it said that the wait time was about 2 minutes and yet it actually was about one minute. This is very typical and even understated. I’ve had it say the wait was fifteen minutes and it’s less than one minute.
Of course, what happens after that, when you actually get to talk to a human being – well, let’s just say that that experience can be very frustrating too.
[NOTE: By “Orwellian” I mean that it isn’t “service,” it’s the opposite. No, they don’t sic rats on you. But the entire process from start to finish is just very very annoying, and I suspect it is meant to be.]
Evidently, customer service people these days are unable to think for themselves. So, management has given them “scripts” from which they are not allowed to deviate regardless of how simple the customer’s question might be. The scripts manage to take a one minute call and turn it into ten minutes or more.
A friend who is not of the computer generation wanted help in contacting a company which had not delivered an item she had paid for. Her daughter had found the company online, and had ordered the item on her smartphone. The only information my friend had for contacting the company was the company’s phone number. She told me the company’s phone number she called told her to e-mail. I listened to the recorded message.
I called the company’s phone number. The recorded message did not leave an e-mail, though it did mention using e-mail. The recorded message told you to go to the company’s website. Like many YouTube presentations, the message was spoken so quickly that I had no idea what the website’s name was.
I put the phone number into a reverse lookup site, and came up with an address in Brooklyn. Putting the address into a search engine, I found the name of a company at that address. Looking at that company’s website, I saw that it was a likely vendor for what my friend had tried to purchase, so I gave my friend the name of the website- VERY slowly enunciated.
My brother was the liaison between programmers and management for the design and installation of a bank’s automated message system for bank customers. I tell him- not entirely joking- that St. Peter will hold this against him.
(Ironically, my friend’s daughter works in customer service.)
Mindy…”Evidently, customer service people these days are unable to think for themselves. So, management has given them “scripts” from which they are not allowed to deviate regardless of how simple the customer’s question might be. The scripts manage to take a one minute call and turn it into ten minutes or more.”
Yes, excessive scripting is a problem. How much value do customers really get from robot-like repetition of phrases like “It is my desire to provide you with delightful service today”?? This is a problem in brick & mortar retail, also, and in both environements it results in more labor cost and longer queue lengths.
What a lot of service providers are doing is minimizing (they think!) labor costs by hiring cheap people…who will have a lot of turnover and hence can’t justify an extensive training investment, so, the company tries to have the system do the thinking for them.
There’s an interesting book, “The Good Jobs Strategy”, by Zeynip Ton. She argues that there is an alternative, and often/usually better, strategy, based on hiring better people, paying them more, training them better, and using them more flexibly. Numerous examples of specific companies are cited. (She isn’t just talking squishy-soft flowers & unicorns stuff; also she emphasizes the importance of good operational procedures and systems)
Years ago, I wrote a post titled “Mindless Verbal Taylorism”. Excerpt:
Four customer service stories:
1)Telephoning a restaurant. Call a restaurant on the phone–to make a reservation, check on the specials, whatever..and you will likely hear something like this:
Thank you for calling Snarfer’s Steakhouse, where the elite meet to eat. My name is Tiffany…how may I be of assistance to you today?
You can bet Tiffany didn’t come up with this string of words herself. She has been told exactly what to say, has to say it 100 times a day, and is so tired of saying it that she often slurs the words together: Thank-you-for-calling-Snarfer’s-Steakhouse-where-etc-etc-etc
Often, the message is so slurred and incomprehensible that I’m not sure I’ve called the right number, resulting in a question: Is this Snarfer’s Steakhouse?
This kind of thing originated with chain restaurants but can now often be found at many independent restaurants as well.
2)At the grocery store. At my local grocery store, the cashiers have recently been directed to always thank the customers by name. Since there is no possible way that they can know or remember the names of all customers, they look for the name on the register receipt so that they can say:
Thank you, Mr Foster
or
Thank you, Ms Schleswig-Holstein
The employees at this store were mostly helpful and friendly all along. There was no need to require them to engage in this stilted dialogue.
3)Calling a bank. I needed to speak to the local branch manager of a large national bank. The person who answered the phone said something like:
Thank you for calling LotsOfBranchesBank…my name is Joan…how may I exceed your expectations today?
When I got the branch manager, I suggested that no one really wanted to hear blather about “exceeding your expectations today.” She agreed, but said she was given no discretion as to how the phones should be answered.
The branch manager had no discretion over answering her own phones.
(A little extra research indicated that this was not an overall corporate policy, but rather had been edicted by some regional executive or regional staff person.)
4)Calling another financial institution. This is not a call center, but a fairly small specialized office. If you call the main number for this office, you will hear something like:
Thank you for calling TooBigToFail Financial; how may I direct your call?
After you tell the receptionist who you want to talk with, she will say:
It is my pleasure to connect you.
She must say those precise words, dozens of times a day.
Talking with one of the brokers revealed that the “it is my pleasure” phraseology had been lifted from that used by a certain well-known hotel chain…apparently, some executive had heard about it, probably at a conference on “improving customer service,” and decided it would have the same magical impact in financial services that it supposedly had in resort hotels.
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/8034.html
OK, I admit I am an Old White Man with a chip on my shoulder “sometimes”.
When I go to my bank to get into my safe deposit box the helpful front desk person always asks what my first name is. I reply it is “Mr. Hargrove”.
Go into a restaurant and they say “Hi Guys”. My response is – does my wife look like a guy?
See, I can be very obnoxious.
Mindy East; David Foster:
Yes, the script thing is 100% dominant and makes me gnash my teeth. It increases the length of the call immensely and if you tell them to just cut to the chase they absolutely cannot and will not do it. They ask you to stop interrupting them (that has happened to me several times).
LYNN HARGROVE:
Probably not as obnoxious as you would be if your name was “Sue.”
I don’t think that I need to tell anyone just how bad today’s supposed “customer service” is.
Customer service numbers not easily found, and some seemingly purposely buried.
No actual way to contact a living human being.
Nightmare phone trees, and the manifold ways you can press the wrong number, and end up trapped in a loop that forces you to start all over again.
“Chats” that are exercises in frustration.
People who, when you finally succeed in reaching them, don’t speak recognizable English, couldn’t care less, are surly, are clueless, etc., etc.
It’s just total crap, and finding the occasional customer service person who is actually helpful, knowledgeable, and can speak good English is like a man dying of thirst miraculously coming across an oasis in the desert.
I will be 83 on the 26th. Thursday night I ran into a Spectrum “technician” who knew less about resetting a modem than I do.
Mine was not working from an electrical outage. After rebooting both the spectrum modem and my computer several times I called for help. Of course, the first thing they wanted me to do is reboot. I obliged to prove it had been done. No go. So she said, “we need to reset.” It’s been a long time since I had to reset a modem, in fact I never had because it defaults to factory specs.
I have a bundle service, TV, phone and internet. The phone responded, the TV’s were already working as they all have their own separate boxes. NO wifi, so the supposed technician set up an appt, except she didn’t.
I got a call Friday afternoon saying they understood I needed to make an appt and one isn’t available until Tues. I told them I understood one was made, they said no, we’ll do it now. After that I thought, I’m getting into the guts of that modem. I’m not waiting until Tues, my husband, ipads and phones will have no wifi unless I fix it.
I know how to get into a modem, I just don’t like to. But I noticed a new network was showing up and it seemed to be the model of my Arris modem. I went in, changed that network’s name and password and voila I had wifi everywhere again.
I think I should charge Spectrum for services rendered, and suggest they teach their technicians how to fix a reset modem. I haven’t changed the appt., I’ll let the person who shows up what an elderly lady can do.
Ruth H:
I’m no modem expert, but the technician who installed mine wired it backwards and it took them over a year and several visits to figure that out. In the meantime I had wifi that went offline very very often and was hard to get back online.
Wait there’s a solution to that, isn’t there? Gethuman.com or something, they have phone numbers for companies that connect you directly to human beings. It’s been a few years but when I tried it, it definitely helped.
Neo, I have plenty of flak from my name as it is.
I sympathize, no, empathize with all of you. I can remember a time when there was such a thing as customer service. I believe that was back before Jackson got elected.
Ruth, you’ve got only a few years on me. In my case, it was my oxygen concentrator. The whole thing is too dreary and still too infuriating to describe. I’d had the thing, or a clone, for 10 years, on it 24/7. Know its foibles, know the few troubleshooting steps the user can take. Did those. “C/S” lady doesn’t want to hear it. She already knows the trouble (I guess she has a telepathic link to a concentrator in an alternate universe). Eventually she asks me if “there’s another adult” here. I put the Young Miss on the phone. The YM quietly goes through the same routine, as coached by the not-really-a-lady. Twice. FINALLY, after about 45 minutes of this nonsense, she informs us that we will have to call the technician. No! Really ???
We do so. He arrives around 1/2 hour later (I’ve been on portable oxy since the unit went down), does the trouble-shooting thing one more time, pushes a button, tells me the fuse is blown, plugs in the replacement unit he’s brought along, takes the busted one to his van, I sign the paperwork, he’s gone. He spent all of 13.5 min at the house.
And I’ve got the same complaints as everybody else about the phone trees, etc etc etc. And I worked C/S twice in my life myself — once as data-comm tech support, so I know what it’s about.
Thanks for the excuse to rant. GRRRRRRRRRR!!! 😡
Don’t forget that another meaning of service is “to breed”. Or in other words to get screwed.
Google Fi phone is, surprisingly, a source of great customer service. They answer the phone quickly and will literally spend days on solving a problem.
I worked in customer service as a service technician on medical electronic equipment, so I empathize with you all.
My job required ordering parts a lot and the company I worked for used one of the (unnamed) overnight freight services almost exclusively. The firm in question almost always delivered good service, but as with all of life, there was an occasional glitch. So, I sometimes needed to contact a human being at the company via their customer service 800 number. That’s where the trouble always began. You call that number and you get “the phone tree”. Nine options, none of which are applicable to your problem, so you make your best guess and choose, which almost always stuck you into a loop requiring you to hang up and try again. Very frustrating. But then one day, I discovered the secret to success. The following is almost word for word…
Customer service Line (CSL) – Nine options. (You know, press one for this, press two for that etc.)
Me: “Agent please.”
CSL: “Nine options”
Me: (Hmm.) I press “zero”
CSL: “Nine options”
ME: “Human being please.”
CSL: “Nine options”
Me: I press “#”
CSL: “Nine options”
Me: I press “*”
CSL: “Nine options”
Me: (in a louder voice) “I need an agent please!”
CSL: “Nine options”
Me: “I need a person!”
CSL: “Nine options”
Me: In an even louder frustrated voice: “Son of a Bitch!”
CSL: “Please hold for the next available agent.”
Me: Laughing out loud because I had discovered the secret.
I tried this again on another call to the same company and it worked again. Indeed, it worked every time.
And by the way, once I was able to get an actual human on the phone at that company, they were invariably good service help.
PS: I tried this same gambit at another, different overnight delivery service and… It Worked there too!
As bad as the scripts are, I dread the damned phone tree even more. At least the stupid scripts allow a CSW who learned English as a second or third language to communicate. Somewhat.
Some phone trees can be hacked by asking for an operator or continually pressing ‘0’ or something else. Some can’t.
Somewhere, I hope, there is a start-up company (or possibly a large, established company) that will revolutionize Customer Service by bringing back real people (not quasi-A.I.’s either, cause those are starting to appear too), in real time, with real authority to fix things.
A guy can dream, anyway.
How about a customer activated button delivering a mild electric shock to unhelpful customer service agents?
It’d make for a half decent Monty Python skit, anyway.
Scripts… Uggh.
A month or so after a purchase, I got a phone call from someone in some sort of ‘Customer Satisfaction Department’.
Drone: “Hello, how are you enjoying your new Hundo? (Ficticious company name to protect my bank account).
Me: “It is March. It is still snowing. I bought a motorcycle. I haven’t even picked it up yet.”
Drone: “Was the dealer preparation satisfactory?”
Me: As I said, it’s a motorcycle, and it is still winter.”
Drone: Blah, blah…
It increases the length of the call immensely and if you tell them to just cut to the chase they absolutely cannot and will not do it. –neo
Then there is the case where the agent is required to read several paragraphs of legal gibberish.
I used to hang up on that, but the next time I called I still had to eat the brussels sprouts.
From a work standpoint, the most annoying customer service I’ve seen on the technology side is TE Connectivity. Every time they purchase another legacy company and assimilate it into the TE Borg, the previous company contact information is wiped from the Web. So then, one must go through the TE global contact center and submit a request for information that will eventually get to the proper person. The process now takes a few days, when in the past, a quick call to the person in your contact list would provide an answer.
I ask these people where they are. Especially if the accent is hard to decipher. My wife, much more patient than I am, stayed on the line to talk to the women at a robo-call site. It turned out the woman is in Gambia.
The web site ID is not working.
Oh, and I forgot to comment on the supposed “music” that is a key part of this torture.
Its not that this “music” is just mind numbingly repetitive, bland, or boring–which it almost always is–but that, almost invariably, it is distorted, fragmentary, broken, which only intensifies the torture which this whole “calling customer service” ordeal seems deliberately designed to deliver.
Good customer service is rare, great even more so. I must say though that I’ve had good luck with the chat versions of this service. Once you get past the bot and it’s initial screening to a person it seems to work pretty well, for me. I hate calling, for all the reasons you and the other commenters detail.
You humans are corporate slaves, cogs, serfs, and just regular sex slaves.
Obey the State. Obey the Corporation.
Apparently the United States federal government got incorporated some time ago.
That Pyramid Hierarchy might mean a corporate hierarchy, literally. The cogs at the bottom, the single all powerful Eye Director of Sauron at the top.
I prefer chatting. I’m never sure whether it’s a robot, but I usually get better service that way. And, I don’t care if it takes me 45 minutes as opposed to sitting on a call for 45 mins. At least I can be doing other things.
When it’s takes a long time for the chat, I tend to think it is a real person.
As the evil geniuses of Despair.com used to put on their support page:
“Customer Service – we’re not happy, until you’re not happy.”