I don’t work in a call center, but it is indeed amazing how slowly computers run when you have a customer waiting on the phone.
It’s frustrating as hell for us too. Especially when we have to keep our calls as short as possible and are tracked.
It’s their own fault if they have too low of a bandwidth budget.
You know - you could speed this up by actually using all the data I have to provide to the system to route my call to actaully give you all the ifnormation you need to handle the call.
“You may now state your name, address, and last four digits of your Social Security number seven times, or you can spread it out through the rest of this call”
What? You mean do something that’s actually helpful to the customer AND the employee? That’s plain crazy talk right there and they’ll have none of that!
sorry - I didn’t mean to put customer satisfaction as job 1, we’ll just keep it as ‘top priority’ for now.
I actually had a variation of this happen a few days ago.
The scene: Got e-mail alert saying $1000 withdrawn from my bank account. Not a transaction that I did!
Call bank. Get live English-speaking human reasonably quickly. Describe problem. Transfers me to claims department. Get another live English-speaking human reasonably quickly. Describe problem again. Live English-speaking human says something like: “I’m look at the withdrawal slip now. You’re account number isn’t anywhere on it. Must have been a data entry error. I’ll credit your account now. The money will be available to you immediately.”
And so it was! Don’t recall when I ever got a bank blunder cleared up so quickly with so little hassle.
I feel that the banks and credit card companies generally have particularly excellent customer service. I find Verizon/Fios to be exceptionally bad. And Expedia has got to be the worst! I think part of Expedia’s business model is to get customers so frustrated that they simply give up on getting that discount applied or points credited.
“Thank you for calling Clueless Cardiac Consultants. If this is a medical emergency, hang up you stupid asshole and call an ambulance. If you are a physician or doctor’s office, dial 1 and you will be placed on hold waiting for the receptionist who’s busy uploading her kitten photos to Facebook. If you want to renew a prescription, pay your bill or talk to a nurse, hit any other button and you’ll still be routed to the same receptionist. Thank you for holding, your call is very important to us…”
“We’re sorry for your long wait. Your meal will be free.”
New car commercial on TV or radio yelling: This is not a good time to be buying a new car!” Just say it once, please, just once, instead of every freaking year, every month, every week, every day going with: There has never been a better time to buy a new car than now!
It beats Sony’s root kit.
“Please be patient while our overworked and underpaid citizens of India so diligently assist your brother customer. And please remember to patiently and carefully listen to every word they say as they struggle with the English language.”
If the delaly in answering your call is causing you some stress, just press the hash button and inhale’.
If you’re stuck in a voice IVR, try screaming obscenities into the phone.
Many of them will recognize that and transfer you to an actual person.
Not the worst, but the least appropriate hold music I ever heard was chosen by a hotel I was calling to make a reservation. Their music? “Hotel California”.
Yes, I went anyway. And yes, they did let me leave.
“Hello, my name isn’t Josh. How can I help you?”
If you’re a provider, press 4. If your not a provider press 4 anyway because all other options dump to abandoned voicemail boxes. Press zero for operator and we’ll unceremoniously hang up.