I’ve been having a lot of trouble with my home internet connection lately. As a result I’ve spent hours…days, even…on the phone with customer or tech support. The new web has allowed us to use technology to answer every question, even those we didn’t know we had. But somehow, doing something as simple as calling your phone or cable company to address a billing issue or seeking tech support has not made our lives less stressful. If anything, the process has taken giant steps backwards. How desperate do you have to be before you pick up the phone, knowing that you’ll want to throw it through the window by the end of the conversation?
Anyone who has had an ongoing customer support issue knows exactly what this guy must have been feeling when he drove his car through the front window of his mobile carrier’s local office. Of course, Web Worker Daily will always recommend saner ways to resolve your disputes.
Rather than risk bodily harm to one’s self or others, let’s do a little harmless venting about the horror known as the corporate call center. While tech companies are notorious for these issues, we’re also talking about banks, insurance companies, medical centers, etc. Any company that has to handle a large volume of customer service-related calls.
What drives you nuts? I’ll start with my peeves. Add your own in the comments.
Voice recognition that doesn’t recognize. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Rather than require callers to “Press 1 to speak to billing, press 2 to speak to…” the recorded automaton asks you to describe the problem you’re having in your own words. Voice recognition works fine for spouting off account numbers or answering yes/no questions. It also works when the voice tells you to say a word from a specified list. But free-form voice recognition on these lines rarely goes well. Either you get transferred to the wrong department, or the computer flat-out doesn’t understand what you’ve asked. Once you’ve called a few times to a call center that routes through a touch-tone phone, you learn the sequence of numbers to hit to get to the department you want and can press them quickly. Voice recognition takes too long. You want to spend your time talking to a human who can resolve your issue, not trying to get a computer to understand what you’re saying.
Some companies do have “back doors” for getting past the bots and getting to a human agent quickly, but it’s hit or miss. It’s a safe bet to try hitting “0” a few times. But that doesn’t always work. I’ve had calls disconnected this way. GetHuman.com keeps track of how to get to a human quickly at multiple companies.
Inopportune sales pitches. You’ve just spent the last two hours trying to solve the problem on your own. You finally give up and pick up the phone. After routing through the menus you’re in the queue waiting to speak to a human. You’re frustrated and cranky and are questioning why you bothered getting involved with this company to begin with. And what do you hear instead of elevator music? “Ask your representative about our latest and great product…Only $29.95 if you act now.” Over and over again. There are times to seize an opportunity to turn a good customer into a great one. When said customer already has smoke coming out of their ears is not one of those times. Wouldn’t it be great if a company had someone telling jokes to pass the time? Non-offensive ones, of course. The idea is to dispel the hostility while you’re cooling your jets in the queue, not make the situation worse so you end up barking at the first poor human who gets your call.
Customer support representatives who clearly don’t know the product. You can tell when you’re speaking to someone who is being paid to support something they actually use. And then there’s the other ones. Those folks who flatly read pages of the manual to you, mispronouncing words and offering the most inane solutions. Don’t waste your time here. It’s often better to take another spin at the wheel..hang up and start over, hope for a better draw the next time.
Ridiculous automated advice. “Before we connect you to an agent who can assist you, we’d like you to try a few troubleshooting tips first…Make sure you’re standing in front of your computer, and…” Yes, I’m sure it’s true that 98% of problems could probably be fixed with a restart. But those of us who are sure that the device is plugged in would like to speak to a human now, thanks.
The long goodbye (or hello). There’s a canned script these folks have to read at the beginning and end of each call. They try reading it as fast as they can, but it’s still a maddening waste of time when you’re under a deadline and you’ve already lost hours of productivity due to the problem you’re calling about. Once the problem is solved, a simple “Thanks for calling, Mr. Jones” more than suffices. After the 5th call to a company to resolve an issue, I finally said up front, “once we get to the end of the call, I will hang up before you’ve had a chance to read your ending speech. I’m really busy. Please don’t take it personally.” We both had a laugh and the call went well from there.
What’s your favorite strategy for getting through the call center nightmare with your sanity intact?
{"source":"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2007\/06\/14\/corporate-phone-support-pet-peeves\/wijax\/49e8740702c6da9341d50357217fb629","varname":"wijax_abf6b34fda6277518de5f805a8e82f4d","title_element":"header","title_class":"widget-title","title_before":"%3Cheader%20class%3D%22widget-title%22%3E","title_after":"%3C%2Fheader%3E"}