281–290 of 348 posts
* - Or in today's online ad-funded world, "voting with your eyeballs"
There can be discomfort in doing this because it feels intrusive but companies do deserve it if they don't offer consumers rights like this. Once you get past the discomfort it's so empowering. If you're with someone unhelpful on the phone you can ALWAYS hang up. That includes 911. You can set a limit for yourself, that you'll try the "normal" customer service route 1-2 times before escalating it but if you reach that wall with what the company is giving you do not feel bad for using the consumer advocacy strategies.
1. You can speak to a real person, but you'd need to navigate a phone tree in an exactly right way, many levels deep, and any wrong step would lead you to an automatic answer and disconnect. The exact options you need to press change frequently and are only partially supported by the voice prompts.
2. There's an option to speak to a person, but the call mysteriously drops each time you try to use it. Of course, to report the problem, you'd need to speak to some person there... you see how it works?
3. There's an option to speak to a person, but every time you try, they are on a meeting, or speaking to somebody else, or temporarily left their office, so you can leave the message. If you guessed you'd never get a followup, you're a smart person.
4. You can speak to a real person, but unfortunately not today, because we have exceptionally high call volume today. Try maybe tomorrow. Got this one from the IRS, for example. Guess what happens tomorrow.
5. You can speak to a real person. No, really. No kidding. Unfortunately, this person has no access to anything but filling up a request form that is filed into the internal tracking system. You do not have access to this system, and neither does the real person you're speaking to, except for filing requests. You don't know who, if ever, will be handling the problem, when it happens - the real person helpfully assures you it'll happen as soon as possible - and there would be no status update or feedback whatsoever.
6. You can speak to a real person, but this person is given a script - having things akin to "are you sure you computer is turned on?", "please restart your computer and see if it happens again", etc. - and will not deviate from it, and beyond that you're confidently told the problem is surely elsewhere and there's no way they can help you. There's no non-scripted persons to talk to.
7. You can speak to a real person, but your issue appears to be a bit complicated, so the real person will have to consult with the other people in the office and give you a call back tomorrow with the resolution. The call never happens. Next time you call you speak to a different person, which has no idea what happened before, so you have to repeat everything from scratch. There's no way to speak to a person you spoke before. Guess the outcome.
If you want to be cruel, add to it poor line quality (I don't know how they achieve it, but I've never had worse call quality than on support calls), random call drops and support personnel with marginal command of spoken English. But that's just an icing on top.
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The worst is when they won't accept new calls in queue, and just hang up.
Aflac has recently (past year) 100% stopped their phone support. Calling their phone support tells you to log in to their website. I hope you don't have trouble with their website! I was able to get my issue sort-of resolved by making a complaint to a regulator -- I now have a direct line to someone capable of taking my phone call. But that's not an option for every company.
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Aflac has recently (past year) 100% stopped their phone support. Calling their phone support tells you to log in to their website. I hope you don't have trouble with their website! I was able to get my issue sort-of resolved by making a complaint to a regulator -- I now have a direct line to someone capable of taking my phone call. But that's not an option for every company.
The IRS dumps you after navigating their call tree if you need less popular options that aren't clear. Me: I want to comply with tax laws but have a question. IRS: Oh, you submitted paperwork and want to follow up on a letter we responded with? Hey, good luck. Maybe get an opinion from a tax attorney or CPA on what we mean in our comms.
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…
This. Humans aren't a panacea for getting problems solved. I would much rather open a ticket than wait on hold for hours to speak with a human in a call center in a low wage country half way around the world, with whom I can't easily communicate either because they have a limited mastery of English, or just because we speak very different dialects with very different accents and have limited shared cultural context w…
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The sheer cardinality of ways they mess it up is impressive. 1. Long intro message with hours, location, website intro, email address and to hang up and call 911 if it’s an emergency 2. “Our menu items have recently changed” years after changing them 3. “We are currently experiencing higher than normal call volume” 100% of the time 4. No “other” option 5. Listing options 2, 3, 4, 5 and then the most common option “1,…
"Our call volume is currently very high and the wait time is X minutes. Please press 1 if you would like to be put in the queue and have an agent call you." I wish more companies did this so that I can actually get on with my day without spending it on hold.
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Haven’t you tried calling the DMV before? It’s a nightmare. Governments are not significantly better at this than private industry. Private industry can be great at it, they just have no incentive to be currently.
Here in Maine, the DMV is super easy to deal with, and very reliable. In fact, my girlfriend's state job involves working with people over the phone to fix problems and help them get what they need, and she's great at it. A reminder about state governments; You get exactly what you vote for, and no more.
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The problem is, not every business you need to contact is something you are doing business with. For example, a business that has unwittingly published your contact information. Or, alternatively, Equifax, a data broker that makes plenty of money and controls your destiny to some extent yet which you do not pay directly. Besides, there is no way to know in advance that you will have a problem that requires a phone ca…
> not every business you need to contact is something you are doing business with While this is true, it's not an argument for a blanket regulation that requires all businesses to provide human phone support. The cases you describe (a business unwittingly publishes contact information that you have kept private, or a credit reporting agency that has incorrect information about you) are specific types of situations wi…
> we all need to be prepared to accept tradeoffs
Do we "need" to be? This is why we have laws. We don't "need" to accept that murder will happen, for example. We can legislate that no, you can't just kill someone because you feel like it. Similarly no, you can't just not answer the phone because you just don't feel like it.
This would not help, since humans are trained to respond like robots. They vaguely understand your support request and then copy-paste a knowledge base support blog post at you. Even by phone, they do this exact same thing. At least my bank does, until you get escalated to a supervisor, who is permitted to go off-script for a minute. You explain you've read the support info and it doesn't apply to your case, at which…