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Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

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Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#101

Post by oxplot »

Did you not know that the said companies didn't have dedicated support staff? Was this a surprise to you? Did they make you believe they had people you could call and talk to?

If you knew and still chose to do business with them, that's on you. If they misled you, then sorry to hear that and you should take your business elsewhere and leave them thumbs down in as many places as you can.

There are countless businesses without dedicated phone support that provide immense value, but can only do so in an environment where linearly scaling costs aren't forced on them. Phone support is such a cost. If such a requirement is mandated, a large portion of legitimately useful businesses will vanish and it'll be a net negative for everybody.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#102

Post by rmbyrro »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #16

I think its important to recognise that quite a lot of modern web based companies are running their business on the 0 cents model. That is they take the marginal cost of a customer and push it down to zero and rely on scale to make a profit from it. They can't add anything to their business that would scale with the number of their customers that has any real cost, computing resources even are heavily optimised for l…

I bet 99.99% of people who complain about not having a human to talk don't want to pay a single dollar for that human.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#103

Post by rmellow »

radarsat1 wrote: post #53

I recently had the experience of trying to do a banking operation that required an in-person visit. For some reason this bank required me to do this operation at the branch that I originally opened the account, which is not where I live anymore, and it's very inconvenient for me to go there. So, while I was in another city of that country, I decided to try and handle that problem. I went to a branch and asked them to…

My partner bought some clothing in Brazil and wanted to exchange it at the store for something else. Unfortunately she lost the receipt, and the alternative which is providing your SSN is not available to her (not a citizen). The exchange was denied.

We walked into another store location. They were sympathetic to the foreigner situation, and made an exception.

Takeaway: Computers can't see that a process is flawed and go outside it when it makes sense to do so. Computers also can't provide feedback to the company that the process is flawed.

Aside:

Brazilian bureaucracies, even commercial ones are extremely unfriendly to non-brazilians:

- Poor bilingual support (EN or ES).

- Expectation of a SSN for all customers (this included booking pre-flight Covid tests).

- In many situations a foreign credit card will not work for online purchases (SSN & brazilian zip code will be checked against your card). Fry's "shut up and take my money" meme was extremely relevant here, as many times I wanted to make a purchase, but it wasn't possible to do so.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#104

Post by LinuxBender »

I agree with this. There are websites that list all the undocumented ways to reach a human for many companies and government organizations but even that can become exhausting and daunting. Those sites may have trouble staying current. Even if one gets past the phone trees there are the issues of under-staffing. The current wait time for the CA FTB is 4 hours. My cell coverage is not good enough to stay on hold for that long.

My personal solution while a bit heavy handed was to move from one of the most populated states to one of the least populated states. There are drawbacks but most of the time when I call a number I reach a real person and no phone tree. Of the two phone trees I came across I was able to reach a real person within seconds. Oh and not just a real person but a real friendly, polite and respectful person. I still occasionally run into an org that is understaffed but they are always willing to go out of their way for someone that is polite to them. This solution is probably not for everyone.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#105

Post by tzs »

I'd like to see something similar but for email. I see too many companies that only provide phone and/or text chat for support. I want to be able to email a detailed description of my issue, with more detail than can reasonably be done by phone, and then proceed from there.

Also, I'd like to see a requirement that if the company is over some certain size and have multiple units or departments with separate support systems they have a support email address that you can mail to where someone will read your mail and determine which unit or department's support to forward it to.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#106

Post by nvarsj »

I literally just spent an hour trying to cancel my internet service, 90% of this time was spent interacting with an automated whatsapp bot (Virgin Media for anyone wondering). Answering the same question, slightly rephrased, multiple times each in some insane dark patterns to get me to not cancel. This is basically what happens when consumer rights have completely eroded.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#108

Post by EricE »

radarsat1 wrote: post #53

I recently had the experience of trying to do a banking operation that required an in-person visit. For some reason this bank required me to do this operation at the branch that I originally opened the account, which is not where I live anymore, and it's very inconvenient for me to go there. So, while I was in another city of that country, I decided to try and handle that problem. I went to a branch and asked them to…

So glad I don't have to deal with a bank but have the option of non-profit credit unions for all my financial needs.

Now if medical-coops would just become a thing :p

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#109

Post by yunohn »

SqueamOssi wrote: post #61
edgyquant wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first job was a small e-commerce shop that had a one person on customer support. We couldn’t keep them and the owner would say your typical stuff like everyone’s lazy etc. Well one month we had trouble finding someone so I picked up the phones when I can and… It’s not just the company and it’s owners who think so little of CS. Almost every caller was obviously someone with an issue and they had no problem venting…

I don't doubt being a rep is difficult. However, if customers were able to reach someone quickly without enduring maddening phone trees and were able to speak with someone who was friendly and actually empowered to provide help, I think the customers would generally be pleasant to work with. So I don't think aggressive customers are the only problem. A lot of the issue can be resolved by the company's willingness to…

I’m not sure what you’re saying - IF everything were different, things would be better? Sure, but we live in a reality where CS is expensive but also underpaid and customers are mean.

Re: Tell HN: There needs to be a “right to speak with a human”

#110

Post by oldsecondhand »

_3u10 wrote: post #83
ironmagma wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point here is that it’s a bad business model. I don’t mean “bad as in won’t make you money or keep the business running,” I mean “bad for society.” Hence the desire to regulate.

Regulation doesn’t make unprofitable businesses exist. If the business model is unviable with support those businesses will simply not exist or cost an amount of money that is unappealing.

It's your baseless assumption that people are unwilling to pay money for these services.
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