| Croakersack.com "Read Writing Worth Reading" |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
Croakersack.com Alvin Hebert Official Writing Website!
"Customer Service Nightmares"
"Customer Service Nightmares"
A Croakersack Article
By
Alvin Hebert
What in the world is happening to Customer
Service? The world may be getting better with all of
the improvements in technology and so on, but
customer service seems to be digressing back into
the Stone Age.
First of all, you are lucky if you can find customer
service, at all. Companies are selling their products
all over the world more extensively than ever
before. They know you are going to have
questions about their stuff. They know you are
going to have problems, too.
They know you are going to need customer service
just like always.
So what do they do about it? They jeopardize the
success of their products and the success of their
businesses by playing games with customer service.
One of the first games is disguising the customer
service function, itself. If you really pay attention to
most of the customer service representatives you
talk to, you will discover they are actually sales
agents, most of the time. They are trained and
geared up to sell you something else! The fact that
they are called customer service usually has more
to do with the convenience and ease of selling stuff
than it does with actually providing you with product
help and information.
If you have ever tried to reach a company’s
customer service operation, you know what I am
talking about. Most of the time, you cannot find it.
It’s like an Easter Egg hunt, especially on the
internet! You look under this rock and you look
over here and over there for a telephone number
and you cannot find one.
Most of the time you discover that you have to
contact them by email. That could take days to get
an answer or a resolution.
If you do find a telephone number, you are lucky if it
is toll free. That’s right! They want you to spend
your money buying their products. Then they want
you to spend more money talking to them about it
after being placed on hold for extended periods of
time.
You are lucky if you can find ways to get answers
that do not require the additional expenses of long
distance calls.
If you do get to a point where you have found a
telephone number, toll free or otherwise, you can
usually count on being put on hold. That’s just
about a given fact. You get a recording that says
something like, “I will connect you to a
representative”, and then they put you on hold for
what can seem like an eternity.
And they play that awful “on hold” music.
They may even splice in a recording in an attempt
to sell you some more stuff while you are holding.
They just don’t know, do they?
I have been put on hold for forty five minutes and
more. A lot of companies even have recordings
that announce those kinds of hold times.
Why don’t they just hire more people to staff the
telephones?
Here’s one of my pet peeves. I really hate it when
they answer your call and say something like, “One
moment, please”, really fast before you can reply,
and then put you back on hold again to take
another call. They will put you on hold to answer
another call that comes in after your call. Many
times, that caller gets serviced before you do, too.
That really burns me up!
I had one representative tell me when she came
back on the line that their supervisor had them
place calls on hold to attend a “brief meeting”.
If they ask you do you mind holding and you make
the mistake of saying “yes” you do mind holding,
you just might have to fight the Vietnam War all
over, again.
Customer service today has a Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde nature about it. You call in the day time and
you get one set of problems but when you call at
night, if you can reach them at night, most times,
you end up talking to someone in a foreign land.
They speak the English language in those foreign
lands but often, as far as my experience goes, they
do not understand the English language well
enough to effectively assist me with my problem. I
can tell when I am in that situation because they
keep asking me over and over again for the same
information and or repeating it back to me. It is not
a hearing problem, either.
They talk in soft, low voices, so you have to keep
telling them that you are having trouble hearing
them. Most times, whether it is stateside or
overseas, they talk to you while not speaking
directly into the phone. That’s another of my pet
peeves. When you say you cannot hear them, they
then speak directly into the phone and say, “Is that
better?”, and when you say, “Yes”, they turn away
from the phone again and continue mumbling.
If you make an issue of it, you might have to fight
the Civil War all over, again.
Or, they just might hang up on you. That has
happened to me several times. I am trying to buy
their products, the things that pay their salaries,
and, they hang up on me just because I am trying
to hear what they are saying.
In regards to local companies that have customer
service functions outside of the country, those are
jobs that might have gone to local people. I have a
problem with that. We have allowed this to happen
with no concern for how it contributes to the
unemployment rate. That’s another of my pet
peeves.
If you complain about that to a company, you just
might have to fight the American Revolution all
over, again.
Here is a customer service trick that I can verify
based on my experience with a super large
company that I will not name here. It is a
widespread problem that you have probably
encountered and never realized. You have trouble
communicating with a representative and you ask
for a supervisor, right? It is a widespread practice
among customer service operations to allow that
representative to transfer you to another
representative under the impression that they are
giving you over to a real supervisor.
I have a lot of pet peeves about customer service
but I will only mention one more. I spent my whole
life waiting to get to be old enough to be given the
respect of being called mister in certain situations,
especially when I am spending my money. Now it
seems like every customer service representative
these days want to call you by your first name.
They do not mind asking if they can call you by
your first name, either. I do not want to take a
chance on getting even worse customer service by
saying, “No, youngster, you cannot call me by my
first name”.
Whatever happened to respect for age and
seniority?
There was a time when you could actually reach a
customer service representative over the phone in
a reasonable period of time, talk to real people and
get resolutions, as well as respect. You cannot
count on that happening, anymore. There was a
time when companies wanted to have contact with
their customers, the people who are buying their
products and paying their salaries. That is no
longer true.
They want to sell you their products and then they
want to hide from you.
What in the world is happening to Customer
Service?
Copyright © 2007 Alvin Hebert Croakersack
Stories & Articles. All rights reserved.
(to Home Page) (back to Croakersack Page!)
A Croakersack Article
By
Alvin Hebert
What in the world is happening to Customer
Service? The world may be getting better with all of
the improvements in technology and so on, but
customer service seems to be digressing back into
the Stone Age.
First of all, you are lucky if you can find customer
service, at all. Companies are selling their products
all over the world more extensively than ever
before. They know you are going to have
questions about their stuff. They know you are
going to have problems, too.
They know you are going to need customer service
just like always.
So what do they do about it? They jeopardize the
success of their products and the success of their
businesses by playing games with customer service.
One of the first games is disguising the customer
service function, itself. If you really pay attention to
most of the customer service representatives you
talk to, you will discover they are actually sales
agents, most of the time. They are trained and
geared up to sell you something else! The fact that
they are called customer service usually has more
to do with the convenience and ease of selling stuff
than it does with actually providing you with product
help and information.
If you have ever tried to reach a company’s
customer service operation, you know what I am
talking about. Most of the time, you cannot find it.
It’s like an Easter Egg hunt, especially on the
internet! You look under this rock and you look
over here and over there for a telephone number
and you cannot find one.
Most of the time you discover that you have to
contact them by email. That could take days to get
an answer or a resolution.
If you do find a telephone number, you are lucky if it
is toll free. That’s right! They want you to spend
your money buying their products. Then they want
you to spend more money talking to them about it
after being placed on hold for extended periods of
time.
You are lucky if you can find ways to get answers
that do not require the additional expenses of long
distance calls.
If you do get to a point where you have found a
telephone number, toll free or otherwise, you can
usually count on being put on hold. That’s just
about a given fact. You get a recording that says
something like, “I will connect you to a
representative”, and then they put you on hold for
what can seem like an eternity.
And they play that awful “on hold” music.
They may even splice in a recording in an attempt
to sell you some more stuff while you are holding.
They just don’t know, do they?
I have been put on hold for forty five minutes and
more. A lot of companies even have recordings
that announce those kinds of hold times.
Why don’t they just hire more people to staff the
telephones?
Here’s one of my pet peeves. I really hate it when
they answer your call and say something like, “One
moment, please”, really fast before you can reply,
and then put you back on hold again to take
another call. They will put you on hold to answer
another call that comes in after your call. Many
times, that caller gets serviced before you do, too.
That really burns me up!
I had one representative tell me when she came
back on the line that their supervisor had them
place calls on hold to attend a “brief meeting”.
If they ask you do you mind holding and you make
the mistake of saying “yes” you do mind holding,
you just might have to fight the Vietnam War all
over, again.
Customer service today has a Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde nature about it. You call in the day time and
you get one set of problems but when you call at
night, if you can reach them at night, most times,
you end up talking to someone in a foreign land.
They speak the English language in those foreign
lands but often, as far as my experience goes, they
do not understand the English language well
enough to effectively assist me with my problem. I
can tell when I am in that situation because they
keep asking me over and over again for the same
information and or repeating it back to me. It is not
a hearing problem, either.
They talk in soft, low voices, so you have to keep
telling them that you are having trouble hearing
them. Most times, whether it is stateside or
overseas, they talk to you while not speaking
directly into the phone. That’s another of my pet
peeves. When you say you cannot hear them, they
then speak directly into the phone and say, “Is that
better?”, and when you say, “Yes”, they turn away
from the phone again and continue mumbling.
If you make an issue of it, you might have to fight
the Civil War all over, again.
Or, they just might hang up on you. That has
happened to me several times. I am trying to buy
their products, the things that pay their salaries,
and, they hang up on me just because I am trying
to hear what they are saying.
In regards to local companies that have customer
service functions outside of the country, those are
jobs that might have gone to local people. I have a
problem with that. We have allowed this to happen
with no concern for how it contributes to the
unemployment rate. That’s another of my pet
peeves.
If you complain about that to a company, you just
might have to fight the American Revolution all
over, again.
Here is a customer service trick that I can verify
based on my experience with a super large
company that I will not name here. It is a
widespread problem that you have probably
encountered and never realized. You have trouble
communicating with a representative and you ask
for a supervisor, right? It is a widespread practice
among customer service operations to allow that
representative to transfer you to another
representative under the impression that they are
giving you over to a real supervisor.
I have a lot of pet peeves about customer service
but I will only mention one more. I spent my whole
life waiting to get to be old enough to be given the
respect of being called mister in certain situations,
especially when I am spending my money. Now it
seems like every customer service representative
these days want to call you by your first name.
They do not mind asking if they can call you by
your first name, either. I do not want to take a
chance on getting even worse customer service by
saying, “No, youngster, you cannot call me by my
first name”.
Whatever happened to respect for age and
seniority?
There was a time when you could actually reach a
customer service representative over the phone in
a reasonable period of time, talk to real people and
get resolutions, as well as respect. You cannot
count on that happening, anymore. There was a
time when companies wanted to have contact with
their customers, the people who are buying their
products and paying their salaries. That is no
longer true.
They want to sell you their products and then they
want to hide from you.
What in the world is happening to Customer
Service?
Copyright © 2007 Alvin Hebert Croakersack
Stories & Articles. All rights reserved.
(to Home Page) (back to Croakersack Page!)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
...they put you on
hold for what can
seem like an
eternity.
hold for what can
seem like an
eternity.
And they play
that awful
"on hold"
music.
that awful
"on hold"
music.