I have an American Express corporate card from my employer. Something came up today and I had talk to their customer service. I only use that card very rarely, and this is the first time that I ever call American Express. The greeting that I got was:
‘Good morning, Mr Waffle. My name is X. How may I bring a smile to your face today?’
:dubious::rolleyes:
The rest of the conversation was similarly over the top. I know American Express have a reputation for excellent customer service, and I’m not really complaining, but I just think this is weird and gets a bit silly, IMO.
Does anyone have similar experience from other companies?
I had to call Amex and beg them to stop sending preapproved credit card applications, in my name to my house. No way did I qualify for an amex card, by any stretch. At the time we didn’t even have any credit cards! But we were saving up a whack of money, then waltzing off and buying $12,000 worth of travelers cheques, and going away for several months. No job, no address, and coming home with no money. As soon as we’d get a new place, they’d start with the applications again.
Hubby would always say, “Do it, get it!”, but I didn’t want it and I knew I didn’t really qualify, no matter how ‘preapproved’ they kept saying I was. We had the same argument, regularly, every 6 wks, until I just gave up and called, begging them to stop sending them. They were trying to be helpful, but just didn’t know how to stop it. I’m sure it’s not a request they get every day.
In the end though, they did stop sending them. Of course a couple of years later, having returned from another trip, when I saw a letter from amex I was prepared to be disappointed, but no, it was not a computer produced letter at all. It was just a note thanking me for using their traveler cheques. Classy! I was very impressed.
During a brief stint at Macy’s, I was supposed to answer the phone, “It’s a wonderful day at Macy’s. This is Bill. How can I help you?”
I usually shortened it to “Menswear.”
I’m going to guess it was just that one CSR you talked to that acted like that. As you’ve heard Amex does have particularly good customer service, I’ve always been very happy when I’ve had to call them. Not only as a card holder, but as a merchant. For how well they treat card holders, they treat merchants 10 times better.
There are promotional speakers who make their living by going around and inspiring sales people. And these speakers need to constantly come up with new material, new methods. And like anyone who is forced to be creative/inventive on a regular basis, sometimes these speakers come up with some real duds. But they’ve got nothing better to go with this month, so they promote the hell out of their latest ideas.
I used to HATE it when the owner and boss went to one of these seminars. She’d come back, all starry-eyed, bubbling with enthusiasm at the latest ideas. For instance, we were supposed to write down the phone numbers from everone’s checks (this was in the 80s, most people paid by check) and compile our very own telemarketing list! I know that we lost quite a few customers by doing telemarketing. She also had some mystery shoppers, so if we hadn’t done any telemarketing, she would have known about it. And then she got pissed because we lost business, and we told her “Well, you know, most people HATE getting telemarketing calls”, because SHE never answered her own phone and didn’t understand how annoying it is.
Years ago I had a part time job with Wyndam Hotels and our greeting was “It’s a blockbuster summer at Wyndham hotels, how may I make your day.” Of course it was in partnership with Blockbuster video about 15 years ago or so.
We get a lot of telemarketing calls at work. Quite a few start out with something along the lines of “Sir, if I told you that you were pre-approved for a business line of credit up to $25,000 what would you do with it”. I used to hang up on them, then I started answering “Hookers and blow” or the more refined “Prostitutes and cocaine” I’m surprised at how many of them just keep going on with their spiel after that and seem to be filling out paper work on their end. Since I know they already have my business name and address and that point and I don’t want to get to deep I normally stop it at the “How long have you been in business?” question by telling them “3 weeks” since they usually require you to have been in business for 90 days.
The other thing that was funny was the last time I was at Home Depot, I was annoyed since I couldn’t find what I was looking for and the Home Depots around me have awful employees. They actively leave aisles that have customers in them and seem to go out of their way not to help people. I like to think their slogan should actually be “You can do it…by yourself.” So anyways, I’m at Home Depot, can’t find what I need, I know they have it, I stomp out of there, as I leave someone said “Did you find everything you needed?” I looked at her and said “Nope, and couldn’t find anyone to help me either” she said, cheerfully, “Okay, have a great day” I’m guessing after I walked out she realized that was the wrong response.
At work, we have outsourced our IT department. They suck. Frequently, you’ll call them with an issue and you’ll end up with no fix at all but a “ticket number” that you’re supposed to write down (so that they can pester you to close it later, fix or no fix).
I just love when, after an hour of frustration and no help, they end the call by saying, “Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
Call any branch of Gerald’s Tires in the Charleston area and you’ll hear, “It’s always a great day at Gerald’s!”. They’re always smiling when I drive by, so I guess they mean it. Or they’re on drugs.
One I could do w/o for all time is the suggested sell at the drive-thru. I’ve never wanted what they’re suggesting, ever. Have you? The crazier thing is some places have a recording that starts when it senses your car, so nice, clear voice asks if you’d like to try the such-and-such deal today and when you decline, THEN you get the human working the window. I bet if you say yes, you have to repeat your order to the window anyway.
I called Qwest to kill my landline and was greeted with some crazy nonsense like “It’s always a great day at Qwest, where we offer low, low prices and always strive to exceed customer expectations.” That’s as close as I can get to verbatim from memory and I shit you not, the term “low, low prices” was used. I called U-Haul yesterday and they started off with something like “How can we make your move awesome?” Can you imagine having to say that 30x a day and not wanting to shoot yourself?
I always wonder why the marketing geniuses never come up with something simple like “Hi, how can I help you today?” I mean, if they walked into a store or drive through, what would they want to hear?
Exactly. What’s so hard about “treat your customers like you’d like to be treated”? Presumably you can’t charge a big pile of money for coming up with that.
That’s where my mind would go upon hearing “How can I put a smile on your face today?”
Or not.
My local Sears is driving me bugshit with their constant marketing over the intercom - I want to not shop there any more, but they have the clothes I want. I wonder if they’d get the message if I slap on a big pair of noise-cancelling headphones the second I walk in the door?
Now, **that **sounds like snark coming from someone trying to vary their own day.
I work in customer service & do a lot of business-to-business calls. Whenever my call is answered with one of those long, drawn-out introductions I try to make light of it. “Wow, that’s a mouthful,” or “Congratulations, you managed to say it all without taking a breath!”
Actually have a truck there to match my reservation, for a start. It’s never happened to me, but word on the street is that making a reservation at UHaul is a crapshoot, at best. So good luck with that (and I do mean that sincerely).
The one that really gets my hackles up is that a local Home Depot has hooked up motion sensors to a few display cases, so when you walk up to them you hear an Amway-type voice start in with "At Home Depot, we have… " and launch into some spiel vaguely related to the area your in.
WTF! :mad: Here I was trying to read the specs of the thingy I was buying to make sure it was compatible with the thingy I have at home, trying to concentrate dammit, and this distracting over-enthused voice is nattering on so exuberantly I can hear his jowls flapping on the recording.
I actually went over and growled at a manager about it. Hear I am in your store, with my money, actually choosing an item which will result in me giving my money to you… and you want to interrupt that process? Really? You think this is a good marketing approach?
ETA: Other pet peeves is when you phone a major retailer and you have to sit through an advertisement about all their current promotions, before you can even get to the menu that let’s you dial “0”.
:dubious::rolleyes: