Customer service is going to hell.

[undeterred]

And I work in customer service so I hate saying that.

Have you ever spent hours on a website looking for a way to call the company and come up absolutely empty handed? Then you do a google search and somebody has posted a number so you finally call, and they act like they are doing you a big favor just to talk to you. But they always find your credit card number to bill you when the time rolls around.

Have you ever had an erroneous charge show up on your phone bill or another bill? The burden of proof is on you to establish that you are not responsible. Even if you have never heard of the third party before. I just spent a couple of hours doing "business" things that should have taken a half hour.

[truedelphi]

1. Yet they call this a "Service economy."

Sympathy for your ordeal. I am the one in the household who does this - and I have crossword puzzles, the internet etc to keep myself amused whenever possible.

Nothing is worse than elevator music. Or going all the way through a 42 step phone menu only to realize that way back at the second number along the path, you should have chosen differently!

[undeterred]

2. I work in a call center

and they always try to send people home if there is no wait time for the customers. The customers have to go through an interactive voice system just to get through to a human being, and about 25% of the time they end up getting transferred again anyway.

[Control-Z]

3. The burden of proof is always on the

consumer/customer/citizen, even on the patient. I've had a rant simmering about just this for some time now. I'll save it for the time when I can "blow" effectively.

You are indeed right.

[Control-Z]

4. On another note -

if you punch *#*#*#* a bunch of times, on most systems it will usually get you a live person.

[Golden Raisin]

12. But all too frequently the

"live" people read robotically from prepared scripts and if your question or problem deviates even slightly from their standard scripts they are at a loss. It's not just phone customer service centers. If you have a problem or need assistance in a store the salespeople (if you can find them) couldn't care less and frequently are just plain snotty. "The customer is always right" died an unholy death decades ago.

[Control-Z]

13. All too true.

See my post #3. I am so disgusted with the way I get treated by businesses to whom I doll out my cash. I appreciate good customer service more than good product/services.

I switched to T Mobile after 7 years with Sprint. Their phone service is NOT better than Sprint's. More dropped calls. Fewer service areas. But their customer service is outstanding. After dealing with the unbelievably and consistently nasty people at Sprint I wouldn't dream of switching back. Dslextreme.com is the only other business I can say the same about. In nine years I've spoken to only one tech support person who didn't go above and beyond the call of his job description.

I'm tired of paying to be abused.

edit: fixed a booboo

[Echo In Light]

14. You're describing some of the defining traits/characteristics of the corporate culture at large

The younger ones enter the job market, and have already been indoctrinated into the corporate culture's prevailing views/values, are then 'trained' by slightly older, middle management types who couldn't care less, and often spend their minimum wage shifts assailed by a wide variety of A-holes who live to play out the 'kick the dog' syndrome since they personally feel like the world just hasn't kissed their ass as much as they feel entitled to. And so it goes...

[MineralMan]

5. I discovered, during a Comcast service call, that there's

a local number for customer service that doesn't involve a call center in India. The tech who was at my place dialed it on his cell phone, so I asked him, since he had to push 1 for English, just like I do. But...there was no wait to reach someone.

So, the next time I needed to call Comcase, I dialed that number instead of the India-bound toll-free number. Bingo! No wait. An CS rep who spoke standard English was on the line in seconds and they scheduled the service call for the same afternoon.

I'd give the number, but it's local to the Twin Cities. It appears that every area has one, but it's different in each area.

[Echo In Light]

6. Interesting you'd bring this up - I do online customer service "chat" i.e. virtual help center

Most people are friendly, or at least civil ...although one does learn to read the inflection of the words, so to speak.

As to your dilemma, though, no, I've never encountered that situation.

[undeterred]

8. Its not exactly that they were rude...

I had a website hosted through my phone company which was then bought by another telecom. I only did this 2 years ago. The 'control panel' for my account did not allow me to cancel service, although it did allow me to delete my credit card number at the end of April. Then they billed me anyway in May. When I finally got through to the right person he acted like it wasn't really his responsibility to cancel, but he would "help me out". He didn't transfer me somewhere else, he just acted like this shouldn't be part of his job. Well if company A buys company B then they need to support the whole business, don't they?

There was no way for me to do this online and it was a hassle over the phone. I just don't think they realize how it looks to the customer. I'm talking about American companies, not something outsourced to India. I just think things have been cut back so far that there are a lot of holes.

[MorningGlow]

7. I just helped my 84 YO mom contact Verizon

She has a basic cell service, with a low base rate and a charge per minute for both incoming and outgoing calls. She really only uses her cell phone to call me when she's working in the yard or when she's in a store. Most of the time it's not even turned on. And yet her last bill had a bunch of charges for calls that she didn't actually receive. It added up to only about $6, but that's a lot for my mom, and besides, it's the principle of the thing.

The first I heard of it was when she called me this morning and said, "Will you please tell me how I can find a live person at this damned cell phone company!" In about 10 seconds I googled the phone code cheat to break through to a live customer service rep. It worked, but they told her there was nothing they could do about the charges, because OBVIOUSLY she must have answered the phone; otherwise the charges wouldn't be showing up on her bill. Only one was annotated as having gone to voicemail. (Most of these calls were the bogus car warranty robocalls, and my mom knows she may have answered one, but none after that.)

She called me back and told me Verizon said there was nothing they could do. I said BULLSHIT. Get back on the phone and give 'em hell. I don't know if she's done it yet, but I told her that if the rep gave her a hard time, to demand to talk to a supervisor and not give up till they took the charges off her bill.

I used to work in customer service too, and I agree with you--it's going to hell. Making an old lady prove she never took these calls--are they kidding?

[miyazaki]

9. What customer service? In the US? Died decades ago.

Want to see examples of a country/culture that provides the best customer service in the world
spend some time in Japan. Its fascinating and a little shocking to see it in work there in comparison
to the embarrassment the USA provides.

[librechik]

10. Hmmm--I thought it was only going to India

that's some evil outsourcing

[Blue_Tires]

11. "IS" going?!? Welcome to 15 years ago....