As consumers we could stop buying from corporations who treat us with contempt.
Not if everything is a monopoly.
Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane
11–20 of 149 posts
Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane
#12Unlikely. Phone support was one of those things that was driving people insane before. Remember jokes about hold music, foreign accents and phone menus? I personally can't stand phone support. It always takes way longer than it needs to, and I can't do anything else during it. Just firing off an email is far more efficient. Easier to do after office hours too.
the problem with menu based systems is that they often don't have a leaf for problems that they don't what to know about. I immediately try to find any way to escape a phone tree for all but the simplest things, and even then...
Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane
#13Unlikely. Phone support was one of those things that was driving people insane before. Remember jokes about hold music, foreign accents and phone menus? I personally can't stand phone support. It always takes way longer than it needs to, and I can't do anything else during it. Just firing off an email is far more efficient. Easier to do after office hours too.
I find that using phone support and being genuinely nice to the other person on the line is a nice way to sometimes get benefits you don't expect, like airplane upgrades...
I purchased a used ipad and the only way to get the thing turned on was to talk to a customer support agent, who had to basically manually flip a database column for me.
Besides these days you can either set a callback, or, just plain do work while you're on hold.
Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane
#14Online support is terrible and not being able to talk to someone who can quickly solve a problem for me is worse.
Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane
#15Unlikely. Phone support was one of those things that was driving people insane before. Remember jokes about hold music, foreign accents and phone menus? I personally can't stand phone support. It always takes way longer than it needs to, and I can't do anything else during it. Just firing off an email is far more efficient. Easier to do after office hours too.
> Just firing off an email is far more efficient. Easier to do after office hours too.
A lot of companies basically deny you service unless you call.
Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane
#16Is there a service where I can pay someone to talk to phone support for me?
Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane
#17Good for some who know how to navigate self help setups. Opens up lower cost options. For example cheap cell phone plans exist because of mostly self service, order sim online and setup online with no physical store and only mediocre phone support. Same with low cost airlines. Bad for those who have trouble navigating things online, often the elderly.
Or the young. I spend so much time helping my teenagers and early 20 somethings with online tasks. They know how to use a few select websites/apps, but outside of that they are pretty much clueless about computers (despite my efforts to educate them).
Why learn when they have someone to do it for them.
Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane
#18Phone support is a baumol cost.
Rising wages for more productive forms of work both pulls away workers from working in phone support - and increases its demand by giving everyone else more money to spend.
I would say a high amount of increased productivity in phone support is by using cheaper labor in developing countries.
Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane
#19A website with company "support reviews" wouldn't be a bad thing.
Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane
#20Unlikely. Phone support was one of those things that was driving people insane before. Remember jokes about hold music, foreign accents and phone menus? I personally can't stand phone support. It always takes way longer than it needs to, and I can't do anything else during it. Just firing off an email is far more efficient. Easier to do after office hours too.
> Just firing off an email is far more efficient. Easier to do after office hours too. A lot of companies basically deny you service unless you call.
It’s because emails continue to queue up and it’s impossible to answer them all. While people will actively avoid calling if at all possible and will drop off if it’s not important.