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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

#61

Post by idrathernot »

Gigachad wrote: post #28
sebastien_b wrote: post #9

One thing a lot of companies are moving to is asynchronous service - where you do an online/text chat, but sometimes that’s just as aggravating. However some companies do it well - recently had to do a warranty exchange with Apple - after I couldn’t find anything useful in their warranty webpage, I hit their Support app with the question (which essentially initiates a chat via Messages) Within minutes I had a respons…

Apple can do this because they have absolute mountains of cash and users willing to pay extra for the experience and reputation. Your average business can’t do this.

They can and often do. IMO small businesses often have much better support.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#62

Post by Scoundreller »

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…

I love it when disliked utilities let me send in my complaints/changes/payments by snail mail. I know it costs them so much more to process, and that alone gives me comfort.

(Of course, I'd hate it if this was by force)

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#63

Post by throwaway128128 »

Not just private industry. Seattle PD literally doesn't pick their phones up. Do a Google search for "seattle pd non emergency" and you'll see that everyone in the city is having this problem. Sometimes they just turn off the phone tree entirely. And no, don't talk about "defunding" - Seattle PD is lavishly funded. They just like to throw temper tantrums when they're held accountable.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#64

Post by Scoundreller »

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…

Sometimes I play the game of being on hold with two vendors at the same time and hope they don't simultaneously pick up at the same time. It usually works out.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#65

Post by albert_e »

wlesieutre wrote: post #25
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.

The problem is that it's been replaced with either nothing or a help page that doesn't solve your problem. I recently had a company email me saying: > In this case, your review of___ has been flagged because we couldn’t verify its authenticity, and on that basis we’ve removed your review from our platform. > While we’re confident that this is the right call, we appreciate that sometimes we get it wrong. If you think…

Someone "reduced" customer complaints by 95% by implementing the new process and got promoted.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#66

Post by skissane »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #31
skissane wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From what I understand of the rules, you have to give the provider a reasonable opportunity to fix things. And then you have to use their own complaints process. And then, if that isn’t getting anywhere in a reasonable timeframe, then you can complain to the regulator. If you file a complaint with the regulator prematurely, it just gets referred back to the provider. I hope it gets fixed before I need to go down that path. I only just sent the email a couple of days ago, I’ll give them a few more days then try calling them again.

Part of the problem seems to be - I have multiple accounts with the one broker (my domestic stock account, trust accounts for my kids, a separate account for foreign stock), and they maintain separate addresses for each account, and they can get out of synch. And the broker is owned by a bank, and I have products with the bank, and the bank also has separate addresses for each product, plus the bank and the broker’s systems are kind of half-integrated/half-not in an opaque way which contributes to this kind of problem. And the bank also owns an insurance company, and I have a policy with that insurance company, and they’ve got the same half-integrated/half-not thing going on with their insurance company too.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#67

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

is_true wrote: post #54
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

Respect the user (without supporting the user) ™

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#68

Post by albert_e »

FpUser wrote: post #55
throwawaymaths wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes. I cannot work while on hold.

Re: Vanishing phone customer support is driving us all insane

#69

Post by tkuraku »

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…

I had this exact issue with at&t. They weren't honoring a promotion that we signed up for. I talked to the support people and they verbally told me that they agreed with my assessment of the situation. It took taking at&t to small claims court to reach someone with any ability to help me. The situation was quickly resolved after they received the summons to court.
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