I Can't Get No Customer Service





I recently had to phone a company because I was fed  up with their service and planned to hop over to a new provider. That's two hours of my life I will never get back. 

It all started so well - the phone rang and someone answered. Well, I thought someone had answered but it was in fact a recorded message . You know the ones, Press One for this, Press Two for that, Press Three for losing the will to live. After jabbing numbers for what felt like an eternity I was sorely tempted to Press Four for a full frontal lobotomy. 

Anyhoo, I eventually got through to a department - whether it was the right department I will never know. Because the next message was, "Our operatives are busy, your call will be answered as soon as possible." So I waited. And waited. And waited. Still, I managed to get through War And Peace while I was in the queue so that's one less book on my To Be Read list. 

Intermittently I got, "Your call is important to us. Please hold the line."

If my call is so bloody important, then answer the damn phone! If all that isn't apoplexy-inducing enough, there's the damn music - or musak; a 60s pop song played on a plinky plonky piano,  guaranteed to make you want to amputate your own ears with a rusty scythe.

I don't blame the operators, not that I got the chance to speak to a real human being. I know from my own experience of working for a big company that the golden era of Customer Service is long gone. An office full of knowledgeable professionals has been replaced by three teenagers in a cupboard in Lucknow.

I'm getting on a bit and conscious that I don't want to spend the twilight of my years on the phone while I Can't Get No Satisfaction for piano and strings assaults my ears.

I called it a day, logged into my website account and cancelled all the credit card links.

Strangely enough, within an hour, the company was trying to phone me. You don't get older without getting wiser.






5 comments:

  1. The worst part is that it's the same music over and over and over again. If they'd at least change the tune, it might help the monotony. This is why I don't call companies if I don't have to. I'll do it all online.

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  2. Apparently the customer is no longer right, especially if you can avoid hearing from the customer.

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  3. I hate holding the line and always hang up and try the website, leaving them a message that their phones take too long, I can't understand foreign accents etc. Then I insist all must be done via email. This doesn't work of course, they insist on phoning me back. It's got to the point where I never change anything.

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  4. Since Covid started, customer service has gotten even worse.

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  5. I have one response:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UvvkWd_dR4

    Enjoy. :)

    ReplyDelete