It seems to be the new kind of customer service.
- Click on the Help tab
- Search for your answer
- Click No this was not helpful
- Then you’re left hanging with no answers
Welcome to today’s customer service.
Our DIY World
We live in a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) world.
- Furniture has to be assembled
- Purchasing software means downloading
- And customer service means heading to a forum
Not only are our products not ready to go, but we are on our own for finding answers.
If a business actually has a customer service department, calling them is yet another DIY task.
- Press 1 for English
- Press 2 to be connected to 3, 4 and 5
- Press 6 to hear these choices again
For a lot of businesses, even pressing 0 won’t get you to customer service.
Isn’t it funny that for all the emphasis on social media, businesses hang up on customer service.
If you’re like me, you’re not laughing.
Automated Disconnect
Cresting on an entrepreneurial wave of ingenuity, we have tools disguised as customer service.
Oh, good – now we have automated disconnect.
- Automated Thank you for your follow
- Automated emails that do not accept replies
- Automated call-backs for automated recordings
How has this happened?
- With 24/7 connection, how did we get so disconnected?
- Are there simply too many people needing help?
- Has the world finally gotten too big?
If that’s the case, why does everyone keep saying, It’s a small world?
A New Brand of Outsourcing
It used to be customer service came with your purchase. Now, we pay for help.
- Technical support costs extra
- Outside consultants compete for our business
Or you can DO IT YOURSELF.
It’s enough to make you start talking to yourself. Oh, wait – we are – it’s called DIY customer service.
Is there anything else I can help you – uh –me with?
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Live…Laugh…Love
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I swear you’re in my head again, Cathy.
Ever call a customer service number when your DSL is out or your computer isn’t working and have the person ask if you’d checked their website for troubleshooting info? I have. Um, if I can’t connect to the internet, how exactly am I supposed to do that?
Paula: it’s a good place to hang out – your head. 🙂
Another great example of DIY customer service. It has become the norm to have the hold recording urging you to hang up and go to their website. I swear when you do get a live person, they’re reading from training tape 101.
Thanks for sharing your story, Paula.
Nicely done Cathy. I’m still smiling 🙂
I remember when the recordings used to say, “press zero for the operator”. They got rid of that in a heartbeat. It is funny though how technology can help us and frustrate us at the same time.
Thank you, Ramiro. Nice to see you here. You are so right about technology, Ramiro. It’s a blessing and a curse. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by.
You’re in my head, too, Cathy. Those customer service ‘helplines’ and forums are usually very unhelpful. It would be nice to speak to someone who knows what s/he’s talking about and solve the problem in a couple of minutes. Instead, you can waste hours and never find a solution. Nice rant! 🙂
Thanks, Sharon. 🙂 I’m with you on that, Sharon. It can be one of the biggest time sucks trying to find a solution. And most of the time is spent looking.
Cathy, again you’re reading my mind. I’m asking a client to switch hosts because even tho’ I can get to a very nice person there’s no help there. So I posted on twitter and sure enough got a response which sent me to a form… and this morning I again got another form to fill out.
They keep asking me for a ‘request’ number… I’ve never had one. I’ve given them name, account number and the number they used to transfer me from one dept to another – no joy.
It’s just amazing to me that they are still in business.
Hi Anne: Apparently, there is a whole lot of channeling going on here. 🙂
Doesn’t it make you nuts? I had a link from a well-known blogger asking me to take 5 seconds to take a quick survey. I go to the survey, fill it out, only to find there was no Submit button on the form. I tried reducing the screen size (my boomer eyes need larger screens), thinking it just wasn’t showing because I enlarged the screen – but nothing.
I reply to the email I received to let them know about the problem and received an automated reply that told me how she received 100s of emails and couldn’t possibly respond to them all and instructed me to go to her site and fill out a form for one of her team to respond to.
Uh, no.
maybe not so by the way, when I get excellent cs, and it does happen, I make it a point to ask for a supervisor and tell them they and their employee are doing a great job… will now add tweeting that since corporations appear to be paying attention to twitter.
I do the same, Anne, or I complete the surveys some send. I recently tweeted about a travel site that gave great customer service. Isn’t it sad though that it seems to be the exception?
We can only “talk” with our feet. if we notify these entities that we find their customer friendly services a piece of …., and that we are not only going to stop being among their customers- and post the quality (or lack thereof) on our websites, they will change. It took the death of Steve Jobs to have Apple change (one can only hope it’s for real) its employment/subcontracting policies. But, only if WE make enough noise. Otherwise- seek out those buttons, hope for forum help, and live with YOUR choice.
Hi Roy: Hadn’t heard about the Apple situation. I agree our feet need to do the walking, but when forums are the only options given by ALL the players, it’s going to take a whole lot of stomping. 🙂
Let’s start!
(Once an activist, always an activist!)
LOL-and it’s why we ♥ you, Roy. 😉
Cathy, you are right on the money! Customer service is non existent in many places and it’s very frustrating! Even if you are allowed to send a message about a specific problem often you will just get copy and pasted response that has nothing to do with your problem!
Hi Stacy: Years ago I bought a computer where I swore the outsourced customer service used tapes. No matter what your problem, you got the same canned response – every-single-time. Beyond frustrating
Thanks for stopping by, Stacy.
I am with you on this one. I get so frustrated when there is no human with which to speak. I also find that often when you get a person on the phone that they transfer you around or ask you to call another phone number to be put on hold again. It seems there is a lot of service when a business is seeking you as a customer, but it goes away after you became a customer.
Hi Kristen: I know what you mean. More than once I called AT&T at a number THEY put on a notice, only to be told when I called it, I had the wrong number and needed to call another number. And, no, they couldn’t transfer me. Grrr…
Wow! So true! I love the part about a forum. It especially annoys me when so many people are asking the same question and no one from the actual company steps (on their own forum) to help people out.
Hi Alicia: I am right there with you. I find it extremely difficult to find what you need and if you start a new topic/thread, they get really annoyed. You end up reading through page after page and never really finding exactly what you need.
Thanks for sharing your pet peeve, Alicia. 🙂
I love you, Cathy. Seriously –girl love for someone who speaks my kind of truth. I’m tired of companies telling me they can’t fix what they broke. Tired of automated messages saying “I’m so glad we connected!” If they really were glad, they’d say so personally. Hearing NOTHING is better than canned praise.
So many bad experiences — Verizon’s phone hell used to be one (they’ve cleaned up their act). Avast! hiring iYogi to “service” when all they do is browbeat your into buying things you don’t really need and then waste an hour of your time “fixing” by uninstalling/reinstalling. In that case, I’d RATHER do it myself.
Thank you for this. It’s good to know I’m not alone. 🙂
*Blush* gee thanks, Lori. 🙂 By the comments, I’d say you are FAR from alone, Lori.
Thanks for sharing our rant. 🙂
i talk to myself all the time, it’s the only way to get an answer i like. the feature of some of today’s insurance marketing in australia seems to be “you will speak to a real person” wow, things really have come full circle .. 😉
So that’s why I’ve been talking to myself all these years. 🙂 Great example of the new customer service – we’re supposed to be impressed that we can speak to a real person. 😀
Thanks for stopping by, tbaoo.
Wow, Cathy. This really hits close to home lately. Especially when I was recently on what seemed to be a wild goose chase between a doctor’s office and my insurance company. Talk about wanting to pull my hair out. It’s a shame customer service has come to this. I think that’s an excellent way for a business to differentiate itself. Sad that that’s the case!
It definitely is sad that we should be surprised when we receive good customer service. That’s why, like Anne, I try to recognize that person to their supervisor, but it is a shame, as you said, Ashley, that it’s come to that.
I spent 30+ years in the insurance business and wonder how the non-experienced person navigates it. Thanks for sharing your story, Ashley – and good luck with that. 🙂