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Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#31

Post by toomuchtodo »

skissane wrote: post #29
lucumo wrote: post #10

Unlikely. 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 have a problem with one of my stock broker accounts-it has the wrong address on it. It is my old address I lived at years ago, before I opened this particular account-I never set it, but I think it somehow got stuck deep in their computer systems from one of my other accounts and got applied to this new account when I opened it. Anyway, go to the website, I see the wrong address - yet click the “edit” button to cha…

Have you filed a complaint with your country’s regulator of financial service providers? I would encourage you to do so.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#32

Post by TeMPOraL »

bruceb wrote: post #6

Good 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.

Self-service is a scam, but it takes reaching certain age to notice it. It's basically the business outsourcing its costs to you. It's tolerable when you're young and have no money, but tons of free time. It's really frustrating when you're a little bit older - when you have some disposable income but are severely time-constrained.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#33

Post by tootie »

lxgr wrote: post #22

Support chat is pretty terrible, but poor quality phone support isn‘t that great either, in my view. (High-quality phone support does exist, but is unfortunately increasingly rare.) I wish email support was more of a thing in the US. Not chat, not a web-only form or ticketing system, just plain old email (on the frontend): It leaves a paper trail (persisted within my control), it has minimal overhead (the forced supe…

I've had mostly very positive experience with chat support. It's always what I look for first.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#36

Post by efields »

Gigachad wrote: post #26
GianFabien wrote: post #5

As consumers we could stop buying from corporations who treat us with contempt.

As a consumer, I hate having to call phone support. Even if they answer instantly and are helpful, it’s still 30x slower than doing what I want in the app or website. I avoid all companies which make me call up or otherwise engage in slow communication to get things done.

Getting apps or websites right for the most amount of people most of the time is an incredible UX challenge. It’s unequivocally better to have employed experts with higher order tools (admin dashboards, etc) do a lot of these tasks.

Larger companies can afford the challenge and actually benefit on both ends: quick customer service via digital interface and decreased pressure on their employed humans (so they start spending less on them…).

But many businesses really aren’t at that scale. And you bet someone has built the SaaS platform for them that 1) insists they actually are that big and here’s the solution they need and 2) actually sucks more as time goes on and requirements are glommed onto it.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#37

Post by DicIfTEx »

lxgr wrote: post #22

Support chat is pretty terrible, but poor quality phone support isn‘t that great either, in my view. (High-quality phone support does exist, but is unfortunately increasingly rare.) I wish email support was more of a thing in the US. Not chat, not a web-only form or ticketing system, just plain old email (on the frontend): It leaves a paper trail (persisted within my control), it has minimal overhead (the forced supe…

Do you mean that the EU mandates a generic email address (like ‘support@mycompany.com’) as distinct from whatever more personalised support address(es) they may push more publicly?

Do you have a link to the regulation? I've not been able to find anything.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#38

Post by brutal_chaos_ »

tootie wrote: post #33
lxgr wrote: post #22

Support chat is pretty terrible, but poor quality phone support isn‘t that great either, in my view. (High-quality phone support does exist, but is unfortunately increasingly rare.) I wish email support was more of a thing in the US. Not chat, not a web-only form or ticketing system, just plain old email (on the frontend): It leaves a paper trail (persisted within my control), it has minimal overhead (the forced supe…

I've had mostly very positive experience with chat support. It's always what I look for first.

Same, though on spotty net, chat may not work or may not work well. Email is great when traveling.
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