Customer Service Hotlines Make Me Want to Punch Myself in the Spleen
Death before disservice.
The term customer service implies exactly that: service. Assistance. Aid. But when you call a 1-800 number, you know the LAST thing you’re likely to get is a human being, fluent in English, with back-of-the-hand knowledge of the product, to patiently answer each and every one of your questions, and to stay on the line with you until your problem is solved. Calling a customer service hotline inevitably leaves you infuriated, and with at least the same number of problems as you started.
The first challenge is finding the number. The harder it is to locate a customer service number, the more exasperated you should expect to be when you call it. It’s as if the company is trying to warn you about how little they actually want to help you. You assume that, by making the number so hard to find, the company is weeding out the weak-hearted fools who lack the search savviness to track it down. In fact, the opposite is true. The fools are those faithful customers who resolve to be “helped” at all costs.
You think you’ve struck gold when a real person picks up after one ring. “This is the corporate office. We don’t serve customers here.” Of course. Corporate funnels you into the vortex that is the automated response system, a mix of Siri, HAL 9000, Rosie the Robot, and T-Pain. She seems to have been practicing her colloquial English since you last spoke. Instead of the typical “please hold while I transfer your call to the next available customer service representative,” she placates you with feigned concern, “Hmm, hang on, I’ll check it out.” If companies put even half the energy into training real service professionals as they did into programming their automated response systems to sound like slutty robo-maids from the 22nd century, we’d all be better off.
You try to outsmart the automated system by hammering in zero twelve times. This used to work, but the system got smarter. Now the dependable zero trick restarts the recording or ends the call. No corner-cutting allowed. You must follow the prompts and earn the right to be put on hold. Prepare yourself for the soothing lullabies of Michael Bolton’s Christmas EP, an ambient softcore porn soundtrack, or a new-age Mozart glockenspiel remix. Any of those would be preferable to the clownishly inflective amateur voiceover actor from Craigslist pitching you free credit checks, low-interest loans, or, in Comcast’s case, a crock of high-speed, premium shit. You’ll have plenty of time to consider the offer; it repeats every twenty-two seconds, and you’ll be on hold for at least fifteen minutes.
You consider hanging (giving) up, but you’re in too deep now. All you can do is put your phone on speaker, lower the volume, and wait. You can’t tune all the way out or you won’t hear when the agent picks up. But you have a life to live. You can’t just sit there and let the call eat up more of your day. So you multitask. Simple household chores, tidying countertops, rinsing dishes, anything to avoid the voluntary slavery of waiting on hold indefinitely. You optimistically estimate that your wait time will be long enough for a bathroom break. To be safe, you bring your phone in with you. Sure enough, mid-dump, you hear the faint click of an answer. Hindi murmurs echo in the background. Fifty years ago, asking a man in India about suspicious charges on your debit card, while pooping, would have been hailed as nothing short of a miracle.
“Hello, thank you for calling customer service. My name is Derek. It is my true pleasure to serve you today. Before we begin, please may I have your mother’s maiden name?”
“Mother’s maiden?” you respond, still buttoning your fly, “I’m just having a bit of trouble installing some new software…”
Derek has you try a whole smorgasbord of technical solutions, all of which fail, before he pulls out his secret weapon. “Sir, please restart your computer,” he says. “While it’s booting back up, please hold Command-Shift-five for exactly seven seconds.”
You do. Your machine responds by humming like an electric razor, freezing, and starting to steam.
“FAIL, DEREK, FAIL! MY LAPTOP IS ON FIRE.”
“Please may I have the last four digits of your social security number.”
“CODE RED, DEREK! I REPEAT, VESUVIUS IS ERUPTING IN MY HARD DRIVE.”
“One moment, sir. I’m going to have to put you on a brief hold.”
Brief hold?! That’s code for “I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.” You’d rather the guy say, “You’re shit out of luck, pal!” than waste any more of your time. Such candor would be superfluous; you’re still inhaling MacBook Air, and must swallow the shame and self-loathing of having obeyed Derek, let alone having called the godforsaken hotline in the first place. You would have been better off throwing your laptop into the bathtub and yelling “Expecto Patronum!”
One can only imagine what goes on during that brief hold. Is Derek soliciting the aid of one of his higher-ups? Or is he doing what you do during holds and playing iPad Parcheesi on the can? One thing’s for sure: he’s not calling Smokey the Bear to extinguish the conflagration in your lap. This becomes perfectly clear when he returns after the longest three-minute hold of your life (Kenny G cover band), regretting to inform you that he needs to transfer you to a different department.
Somehow, you have yet to hang up the phone. Strident acid jazz riffs ensnare you in a catatonic trance. Your pride is on the line, but unfortunately so is a new customer service agent speaking in yet another incomprehensible foreign dialect. Good luck booking a flight when your first language is your listener’s third, and he’s on the 17th floor of a semi-abandoned cloudbuster in Mumbai. Your nonstop to Paris turns out to be a one-way to Dallas, with a five hour layover in Wichita. You’ll discover the error only after paying, which means clearly communicating twenty-three credit card digits (sixteen, plus expiration and security code) over a choppy signal.
“That was nine-five. Nine-five-seven-four.”
“Should we start from the top?”
“Two-six-six-five, nine-five-seven-four, three—
“THREE-EIGHT-SIX-ONE, FOUR-THREE-TWO-SIX.”
He reads the full number back to you to confirm. It has more misplaced digits than an unfinished sudoku puzzle.
“Expires eleven-fifteen. Security code nine-one-five.”
“Thank you kindly, sir. May I have your e-mail address, please?
“No no, that was D. D as in day.
“Incorrect. D. D as in die. M as in motherfucker…”
Customer service agents take a lot of abuse, but not all of it is warranted. Think of all the dumb questions you ask that you already know the answers to, hoping for a new diagnosis. You’ve learned to refuse to take “no” for an answer because 99% of the time, due to this persistence, you get “yes” instead. Every once in a while, though, you get transferred to an agent who’s been hardened by one too many rude, whiney customers — the 1-800 Nazi.
“Hello, I’m calling to make a flight reserv—”
“I will alert you when you have my permission to speak.”
“I will ALERT you when you have my PERMISSION.
“Please, there’s just one thi—”
Kindness, patience, and empathy — on both ends — are paramount to a successful customer service call. Put yourself in the service provider’s swivel chair. How much more helpful would you be? Telephone service has intrinsic limitations. You’ll never get the same kind of help over the phone as you would face-to-face, so why do you keep expecting it?
After four transfers, attempted politeness invariably devolves into condescending passive aggression.
“Kathy. What seems to be the problem?”
[Laura Linney voice] “Hiiiiiii, Kathy. You have a lovely name, Kathy. Kathy, I’m so happy to be speaking with you because — you won’t believe this — I’ve been on hold for thirty-seven minutes! Kathy, that’s almost an hour!”
You know exactly what you’re getting yourself into when you dial those dreaded digits, 1-800. Is it faith or desperation that pulls you back to the lines? Are you sure there’s NO way to do this electronically? Have you fully explored ALL alternative problem-solving avenues?
Some respectable companies have replaced phone service with live online chat. Seemingly perfect for simple questions, e-chat is actually more futile than a toll-free number — one more degree of impersonality, more anonymous potential to deceive and mislead with names like Zeke and Esmerelda accompanying doe-eyed, Powerpuff avatars. God only knows who is sitting behind that screen, toying with you…
There’s something different about Kathy. Something in her language, her tone. You can hear it; she actually wants to help you! She’s not paid per client. She’s not trying to get rid of you as fast as possible. She’s not going to transfer you to a different continent. She may not care about you, but at least she knows what she’s doing. After she helps you redeem your air miles (two one-ways, with aisle seats, your preference), and waives the processing fees because she can tell you’ve had a rough day, Kathy morphs into an angel in your mind. Sheer jubilation usurps your anguish. You want to jump through the phone and embrace her. You love her. You want her address so you can send her a postcard or a giant teddy bear. Why can’t all customer service agents be as sweet and accommodating as Kathy?
Calling a 1-800 number is a growth experience. It teaches you etiquette and skills that are applicable to all personal relationships. It improves your mental acuity and polishes your listening ability. Why bother booking your own flight, or fixing your own wireless router, or walking to an actual bank, when you can shmooze with Derek and Kathy from the comfort of your own toilet?
Just as your faith in humanity is being restored, Kathy reminds you that she’s been reading from a script the whole time, following protocol, and to her, you’re not a new friend but rather another lemming mindlessly marching off the customer service cliff.
“It has been my pleasure assisting you today. Are you 100% satisfied with the level of service you have received?
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