when you call your local utility company, and get robo-chick
para continuar en espanol marca el dos- or whatever 6 years of spanish and i'm SO BAD
and she drones: please enter your account number, followed by the pound sign
and then...please wait...and ring ring ring and (if you're lucky)
a real person who sounds like they're hella bored and eating chips and you can hear kids roughhousing in the background does their best ben stein impression and says:
may i have your account number please?
...
hasn't technology advanced to the point that my keypad punch automatically informed the "customer service representative" of my account number?
but my account number just routes the call to the appropriate work-from-home rep in my geographic vicinity.
that next person has to start all over again and get my account number.
and god forbid you get transferred- you gotta give it again!
today, i called, keypad punched, gave my #, got transferred, gave my #, then the system was down and i had to call back, and i called back, keypad punched, gave my #, got transferred, gave my #, and then- oh yes- GOT TRANSFERRED, GAVE MY #
i am not over-exaggerating for dramatic blog fodder.
...
true customer service demands a more streamlined information flow. someone's got to get on this!
1 comment:
The problem is that as you are passed around the system you are talking to different contract companies and the software that originally answered the call can only forward the call, not your info.
The first hop is to a contractor - usually in India or some other low labor cost country. If your problem is high enough on the escalation list you get transferred back to someone who can do more to address the problem and is usually in the US and has some level of access to your equipment.
Yup, quality customer service is being sacrificed for the sake of shareholders in the form of lower labor costs. It stinks but is a reality of the current global economy. If companies want to be competitive globally and keep shareholders happy then they have to do what everyone else does.
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