Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane • Hacker News Board

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#51

Post by mike503 » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 1:41 AM UTC

Not just phone support. Support, period. It feels like Covid broke things and nothing has fully recovered. Take for example the Subway app. It has no built-in support. You can't report issues with an order or the fact it never even showed up. I used their mail forms and even tried to get their attention on twitter. I got one auto response once from a form (but with a woman's name like it was a real response) and never heard back about anything.

Just one of many many many things I find are just "missing" nowadays.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#52

Post by posguy » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 1:43 AM UTC

mike503 wrote: post #51

Not just phone support. Support, period. It feels like Covid broke things and nothing has fully recovered. Take for example the Subway app. It has no built-in support. You can't report issues with an order or the fact it never even showed up. I used their mail forms and even tried to get their attention on twitter. I got one auto response once from a form (but with a woman's name like it was a real response) and neve…

The Chipotle and Wendy's apps and websites have nearly the same issue, and Chipotle won't let you even call your local store anymore, it just goes to a useless AI Chatbot.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#53

Post by posguy » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 1:44 AM UTC

ucm_edge wrote: post #47

For me the worst is you talk to someone at a company, be it phone or support chat, and it becomes clear the person wants to help but the policies of the company prevent their customer support people from doing anything meaningful. The support person has no power, may not even be employed by the company in question, etc. Then you get the salt in the wound customer satisfaction survey of "Did X resolve your issue today…

The baby bells, especially Verizon lean heavily on automation and self serve tooling, its how they keep shedding employees year after year despite increasing revenue.

Verizon on the Wireless side has so little bloat compared to AT&T from what I saw.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#54

Post by is_true » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 1:44 AM UTC

ucm_edge wrote: post #47

For me the worst is you talk to someone at a company, be it phone or support chat, and it becomes clear the person wants to help but the policies of the company prevent their customer support people from doing anything meaningful. The support person has no power, may not even be employed by the company in question, etc. Then you get the salt in the wound customer satisfaction survey of "Did X resolve your issue today…

Google does this. They even tell you that they cannot help you because but you get a lot of empathy

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#55

Post by FpUser » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 1:47 AM UTC

throwawaymaths wrote: post #13

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 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 whil…

And not so lucky (I suspect the majority) can not work when on hold

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#56

Post by zx8080 » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 1:47 AM UTC

The money is their already. Why doing anything to support customers. Unless someone sues them.

It's sad. But it could be a rational behaviour for the companies.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#57

Post by posguy » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 1:49 AM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #20

yosito wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Sounds like shithole company behavior at its finest, who cares about responding to support queries after all? Cheaper to not backfill vacant support positions than engage with actually supporting your products.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#58

Post by Syonyk » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 1:51 AM UTC

sberens wrote: post #41

Personally, I'm really excited for the era of generative AI powered customer support. Hopefully it will bring low wait times, knowledgeable "representatives", and fast escalation.

And it was 100% polite, responsive, etc. Except it actually hallucinated the control that it told you to toggle to resolve the issue.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#59

Post by posguy » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 1:52 AM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #46

This has some serious consequences. My wife had to go on short term disability and the process was handled by a third party company. Man. After 2 years of trying, we still have only 50% of what we are owed, have paid taxes on 100% of the benefits and the other 50% has been cashed out by someone else according to the company. Some of the weeks where she was at her worst and the most vulnerable, she spent entire days j…

Engage with a lawyer. If you work for a mid-size or large firm that gives a hoot about their employees, they will have a disability law firm on retainer for their employees and spouses to use as a privilege.

Having seen said law firms in action, I have never seen such an expedient processing of disability claims by private insurers and Social Security.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#60

Post by bolangi » Sat, Mar 18, 2023, 1:53 AM UTC

Overtonwindow wrote: post #44

Ever tried to get someone on the phone at UPS? It's impossible. If you have a problem in store, with a driver, or anything, it's impossible to get a live human being through the UPS phone number. I googled, I tried every trick, but the system assertively refuses to grant you the privilege of speaking with a human. I truly believe that most major companies do not want their customers to talk to an individual, and use…

> I truly believe that most major companies do not want their customers to talk to an individual, and use tactics to dissuade customers from calling and frustrate those who do.

Not in every country. In Japan, most companies have a responsive help line.