Okay… Here it goes.
World, pay attention
If you have someone on hold for more than 2 minutes. No matter how many times your automated voice tells us:
- You appreciate our patience
- Our call is important to you
- Your agents are busy helping other customers
It does not mean:
- That you actually care about us beyond an income source
- You appreciate anything beyond which hold music you choose to entertain us
- Your outsourced, english mangling, under paid, phone drones, are actually supplying help
World: And I am speaking to you Corporate America:
If you really are sorry to keep us on hold….
HIRE MORE PEOPLE AND BUY MORE PHONE LINES
If you really want to help us….Stop using phone trees that lead only to forons (foreign morons) reading a script.
And most importantly… Give us a direct line to the person who will fix the problem instead of transfering us 5 times to 4 forons who will transfer us to the person who has no direct phone number
I got to talk to 4 people with hindu accents that finally transfered me to a woman in a tacoma regional station to set up a house call because our tv is out.
Total phone time for this adventure:
5 calls, 2 transfers to busy signals, 1 transfer to 30 minutes hold time and a disconnect, 1 transfer to an unattended headset.
Total time on phone: 48 minutes 35 seconds.
Total times automated voice told my patience was appreciated: 37
Um…
“Foreign Morons?”
Not knowing exactly what you experienced, I feel compelled to mention that someone without a good command of english is not neccesarily a moron. The english language doesn’t make much sense compared to other languages. And it’s probably not their fault if they haven’t been trained properly.
I don’t mean to rant at you, but the term “foreign morons” kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I do share your frustration with the whole “your call is important to us” schtick. Of course if it were important to them, they’d be taking my damn call instead of supplying a recorded message about how much they respect me and value my business.
The WORST part of it is the voice saying “Your call is important to us.” After hearing that about 3 times I am ready to reach through the phone and trottle someone…
Of course, the anger does help in dealing with the idiiots on the other end of the line.
Phone trees are not actually designed to give people service. They are created as a labyrinth to give the illusion that a service exists without having to actually provide the said service. Of course unlike a classical labyrinth like that of Crete, there is no Minotaur or golden thread, just a sea of muzak covers of Queen songs. Forons fit the labyrinth bill perfectly, it’s not just about cheap labor. And of course I wouldn’t just include Bangalore outsourcing as the only category of morons, but I would also lump crackheads and yokels in the deep south in there.
Ultimately the goal of the modern service industry is to make money while avoiding as much as possible actually rendering a service. It’s all modeled after insurance companies. Why do you think so many consumer products are sold with “maintenance agreements” and “product protection plans.” If I had less ethics and hated humanity just a little more, I would model my career after this example and be highly successful to that end.