Thursday, May 29, 2008

Anna Hates Customer Service

Customer. Service. I am paying you, I am your customer. It is your job to serve me. I'm not asking for something ridiculous, here. I don't call Apple, for example, and ask the service representative to fold my laundry, make me dinner and wash my feet with her hair. I'm starting to think though that those kinds of requests might get better results since the people who work in customer service seem to know the least about the company they work for of anyone ever.

My brother works in customer service, actually, and he's pretty good at it. But that's probably because he ACTUALLY HELPS PEOPLE. I spent over an hour on the phone with Sprint today, and talked to three different people in various "departments" before they could tell me that they couldn't, in fact, help me over the phone. This seems like something that should have occurred to any one of these three people at some point during an excruciatingly long conversation, but no, it didn't. So then I went to the store, where the Sprint employee "helping" me called, I presume, the same moronic employees, and this time, was able to tell me they couldn't help me within 30 minutes. So at least that's an improvement.

Perhaps more unnerving though than the fact none of the three people on the phone, the one being consulted by the third, the guy at the store, the person HE was on the phone with, or the other 7 people working at the store doing nothing -- a total of 13 useless employees -- could help me switch my current phone number to another phone, was the series of inane questions they asked me. No, I don't know how long my new boss of 2 weeks has had this cell phone plan, we don't tend to chat about things like that. And no, oddly, I don't know the password my dad set up seven years ago when he bought my brother and I our first cell phone to keep in the car. Fine, ask these ridiculous questions, as long as they don't get too personal, I don't really care. But what bothers me is that when I said "I don't know" to every irrelevant question I was asked, it wasn't a deal breaker! It wasn't, oh, sorry, then we can't help you. The fact that I couldn't answer these questions DIDN'T SEEM TO MATTER AT ALL. Maybe that computer screen in front of you, useless Sprint employee #5, says: "If that question didn't get 'em, type a little bit more, then ask a fourth time for the number they're trying to switch! Sucker!"

Unbelievable. I was given a similar run around by US Airways last week, and a Genius Bar employee once showed me how to give my iBook the computer equivalent of the Heimlich maneuver in order to pop its video chip back into place. This is unacceptable. At least the Genius Bar employees know a thing or two about Macs and why worthless iPod version number eleventy billion has mysteriously died again; in the case of every airline I have ever utilized and this new endeavor with Sprint cell phone plans, however, I would settle for an "Only Half Retarded Bar." Then at least I could use my douchebaggy Blackberry that I don't even want. Ugh.

3 comments:

Mikey K said...

What's worse than idiot customer service people is being strung through an endless round of computerized voices and stupid options to choose from. Even worse than that is when the computer voice asks you a question, and then says something like "Please wait while I look up this answer."

I?? Really? All of a sudden the computer is an actual person? Or does this company think that the caller is stupid enough to believe that this monotone woman who sounds the same whenever you call, regardless of how many people call at the same time, is actually a fucking person???

Customer service sucks. Everywhere.

Candice said...

... but you're talking to someone in India! How cool!

anna said...

Please add 21 minutes with 3 AT&T representatives to my tally, the third of whom reported that Sprint gave them the wrong account number, which is holding up the transfer.

Way to try to blame AT&T, man from Sprint, when it was YOUR DAMN FAULT THE ENTIRE TIME. I might actually explode.