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On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

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Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#201

Post by ryanwaggoner »

technofiend wrote: post #134
arebop wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: does anyone see these programs and think wow, this airline UX is so awful I want to show them my loyalty so that eventually they'll stop trying so hard to make me unhappy? I'm pretty convinced this all boils down to a sort of low-grade white collar corruption: people who travel a lot for business sometimes can get away with favoring one airline over another, where this decision costs the shareholders a little b…

>I'm pretty convinced this all boils down to a sort of low-grade white collar corruption: people who travel a lot for business sometimes can get away with favoring one airline over another, I suppose it depends on the business but at my Fortune 50 we're required to use "lowest logical airfare". You can force a choice of Southwest over United by choosing one airport over another, and there's enough wiggle room to let…

What? There’s a whole cottage industry of helping business travelers accumulate miles and award tiers. And the vast majority of heavy business travelers are just rank and file employees. It’s definitely not only highly placed executives.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#202

Post by myrandomcomment »

da_chicken wrote: post #140
jklinger410 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they link my identity to my browser They link your phone number to a session/user along with ad networks who have stored cookies on your machine and use predictive modeling to guess at who you are/what you do. It doesn't work on 90% of the HN crowd, people who block ads/disable javascript, or just don't do a lot of traditional "browsing", but yeah.

You know, I'm quickly reaching a point where I want the default browser to work in Incognito mode, and the browser should only switch to regular mode when I explicitly whitelist the domain.

My IOS devices are set to Incognito mode by default and I use a Fire Focus as an add on for blocking with Safari. Been that way for ever. On my laptop Safari is in Incognito mode for all but a few sites. I clear the browsing history on the one that is not after the browsing session.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#203

Post by atourgates »

wpietri wrote: post #96
kenneth wrote: post #57

The most obvious example of this in daily life is through airlines, where the difference is pretty transparent and you get night-and-day better service by being a loyal customer. With top status with AA and UA (EXP and 1K), you connected to U.S.-based very senior phone agents right away, who always make sure to take care of any issue that arises. 50min delay on your AA flight? No problem, sir, we are rebooking you on…

Tangent: Are there other people here who just refuse to sign up for any of these programs? I have family members who are super into frequent flyer programs, credit card points, etc, etc. But I don't like the cognitive load they introduce, and I don't like having to figure out how much I'm being manipulated in any given interaction. I get that I'm missing out on goodies, but they're paying for those goodies somehow, s…

There's something about air travel that makes it a uniquely terrible experience and drives me to participate in these programs.

There is nothing I do in my life regularly where I'm more restricted, or more closely related to a rigid caste system than air travel.

Every time you take a flight, for somewhere between 3 and 20 hours, you're told exactly where to stand, where to sit, what you can and can't wear, what you can and can't carry.

Almost everything about frequent flyer status is about making these limitations slightly less terrible. You're still going to be stuck in a shitty seat for several hours, but your seat might have slightly more legroom. You're still told when you can get on the plane, but you'll be at the front of the line. You still have to go through an invasive security process, but you'll go quicker, and it'll be slightly less invasive.

Most of these are stupid little things (and there are other much more objectively valuable perks, like waived change fees, improved options in the event of cancellations or delays, free checked baggage and the like), but in the artificial, restrictive and status-driven world of air travel, they're so nice to have.

All that said, I still think Southwest is the best domestic airline to travel and not be treated like a complete peon, assuming you don't fly enough to earn status with a traditional carrier.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#204

Post by throwawaycanada »

arebop wrote: post #108
wpietri wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangent: Are there other people here who just refuse to sign up for any of these programs? I have family members who are super into frequent flyer programs, credit card points, etc, etc. But I don't like the cognitive load they introduce, and I don't like having to figure out how much I'm being manipulated in any given interaction. I get that I'm missing out on goodies, but they're paying for those goodies somehow, s…

Also: does anyone see these programs and think wow, this airline UX is so awful I want to show them my loyalty so that eventually they'll stop trying so hard to make me unhappy? I'm pretty convinced this all boils down to a sort of low-grade white collar corruption: people who travel a lot for business sometimes can get away with favoring one airline over another, where this decision costs the shareholders a little b…

This is exactly what it is. Same for hotels.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#205

Post by jschwartzi »

ebullientocelot wrote: post #180
slowhand09 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

local area code + 867-5309

Thanks, it's stuck in my head now.

Jenny I got your number I need to make you mine Jenny don't change your number...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WTdTwcmxyo

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#206

Post by savrajsingh »

mehrdadn wrote: post #91

> Zeta Global, whose clients include wireless carriers, generates scores using data points such as the number of times a customer has dialed a call center and whether that person has browsed a competitor’s website or searched certain keywords in the past few days. Wait, so this means I dial a number and they link my identity to my browser to tell whether I've browsed a competitor's website in the past few days? Is th…

Let’s flip it and make a browser plugin that sets it so you have all the traits of a user that needs to be responded to immediately

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#207

Post by gowld »

sandworm101 wrote: post #110
skybrian wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those questions don't seem consistent with just wanting to chat. Aren't a lot of people concerned about delivery times?

And those legitimate questions can be answered elsewhere. The elderly person wanting to chat is looking for an excuse so to do. They take one issue that justifies calling customer support and then once they have someone on the line throw in every other little detail. Younger people, who don't like talking to customer support, seek to limit their call to as narrow an issue as possible. Elderly callers enjoy expanding…

Where can they be answered elsewhere, for someone who is computer illiterate and has poor eyesight?

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#208

Post by inetknght »

ggm wrote: post #136
inetknght wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes absolutely. Why do you think there's so many tech support fraud? Why do you think Geek Squad is a thing?

So.. if there's a profitable business here, why isn't google running helpdesk over its consumer products? They monetise as good as the next hegemon, why not this?

This is conjecture.

I would imagine that providing support over the phone under the Google name or brand would have a high volume of people demanding free support because their products are already provided for free. Not providing free support could damage their reputation.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#209

Post by gowld »

joe_the_user wrote: post #55
bb2018 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all depends on your notion of fair. If one percent of people call up customer service to complain about 50% of their transactions they are clogging up the system. I only call if something is breaking and I've exhausted all troubleshooting and automated methods.

Sure, if "whatever you happen to get" is considered fair, then you're always OK. But the danger of - "I don't complain excessively so it's OK to whoever complains most" is that by gradually pealing off "excess" complainers, you'll get to a point where no can complain to any degree, people fear to complain about even wholly inadequate products for fear of getting on lists, etc.

All this means is that if you can't afford to pay for a product (including customer service), you don't get it.

Re: On Hold for 45 Minutes? It Might Be Your Secret Customer Score

#210

Post by ryanwaggoner »

njarboe wrote: post #107
kenneth wrote: post #57

The most obvious example of this in daily life is through airlines, where the difference is pretty transparent and you get night-and-day better service by being a loyal customer. With top status with AA and UA (EXP and 1K), you connected to U.S.-based very senior phone agents right away, who always make sure to take care of any issue that arises. 50min delay on your AA flight? No problem, sir, we are rebooking you on…

So if you aren't in the top tier, fly Southwest as much as you can. I do. All the same seats with minor differentiation possible. There are many reasons they have been the only airline to be profitable for decades, but having good service for everyone is definitelty one of the reasons.

Strongly disagree. Southwest is hugely overrated imo. It’s one of those companies that maybe used to be better or something, so they have a whole class of fans who are blind to how lame they currently are. I’m probably that way about Apple :)

Not that any of the other major carriers is much better. But I don’t love the lining up and then hoping for a good seat, they’re often not the cheapest, and letting everyone check two bags for “free” is a cost drag on everyone. Unbundling is better. So is having different classes of service so that people who want to subsidize the entire cost of the flight for a lie flat seat can do so.

I’ve also had multiple shitty customer service experiences with them, including one where they wouldn’t let me board an earlier half-full flight instead of the one I was ticketed on without trying to charge me 2x the cost of my ticket as an upgrade fee. Now, I obviously wasn’t entitled to anything beyond what I paid for, but I’ve been treated much better by many airlines and they were just rude about it. They owed me nothing, and they weren’t about to let me forget it.

I still fly them every now and then but it’s a pretty mediocre brand that people are irrationally excited about.

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