As the world has become more and more computer savvy, there
seems to have been a major decline in people skills. Nobody has the time to be
a real person when there is so much going on in the world behind our smart
phones.
But it isn’t just the fact that most of us no longer have
the time to get to know our neighbors or even our fellow workers. Businesses no
longer have the time to know their customers. The pressure to accomplish all of
our needs on the internet has become overwhelming. Social Security checks must
be deposited electronically, and taxes paid the same way. Good luck ever
talking with a real person as we fall into the deep well of resolving business
issues with a major corporation.
I wrote the following piece a few years ago but, if
anything, the problem has gotten worse. Good luck in Searching for Customer Service (Granite Grumblings: Life in the Live Free or Die State, 2011, Snap Screen Press).
Glenn K. Currie
Searching for Customer Service
New Hampshire used to be a plain-speaking, down-to-earth
place where we did business with a nod and a handshake. We sorted out our
customer service problems directly. If we had a question, needed to change an
address or wanted to discuss an issue, we picked up the phone and talked to a
real live New Hampshire person. Life was simple.
The demise of customer service really occurred when some
evil geniuses invented the “decision tree” automatic answering systems. These
systems suddenly provided both corporate America and government bureaucracies
with an unlimited number of degrees of separation from the customer. They found
that extensive use of these devices almost completely eliminated any real
communication with the customer. For many of these companies, the systems have
allowed them to replace their customer service departments with a well-trained
cockatoo, and reassign critical human resources to such pressing issues as
developing new bonus plans and redesigning forms.
Installing these systems has resulted in dramatically
reducing customer complaints. This has been accomplished by initiating a
diabolically clever war of attrition with the consumer. The first assault is to
task the caller with fifty or sixty button-pushing decisions. Hardly anyone
over sixty is going to even remember why they called after being put through
eight decision trees. This immediately eliminates many of the callers who don’t
have enough spare time to actually proceed through this jungle.
Unfortunately, I was faced with an issue that could only be
resolved directly, and I was forced to continue through this maze. The next
step in the process was to be told that I would be allowed to speak to a real
person in “x” number of minutes. I learned after the first couple of tries to
multiply this number by six. A word of caution to novices: if the first waiting
time they give you is more that ten minutes, that is their secret code for “we have gone home for the night”. Do not try
to outwait them in this circumstance because the phone is automatically
programmed to disconnect you after eight minutes. Their final ploy while you are
waiting is to assault you with a carefully selected assortment of brain-numbing
music, designed to turn you into a vegetable. This will leave you on an IQ
level with whomever you finally speak to.
I survived this test by just leaving the phone off the hook
on my desk until I heard a voice. When I finally reached a live person, I
explained that I was calling to have the phone company disconnect a phone that
was in the name of my recently deceased father. I was told in broken English
that they would only speak to my father regarding this issue, and then they
hung up. Accepting this challenge in the true New Hampshire spirit, I redialed,
went through the whole process again and then told them I was my father and I
needed to cancel my phone because I was dead.
They were fine with that. Given the waiting periods involved
with these systems, it probably happens to them all the time.
.
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