Thank you, your time is worthless, please hold
Doc Searls talks about being on hold with Verizon for nearly two hours then getting the dreaded email reply:
Due to high volumes, you may experience a delayed response. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.
For the sake of “respect” and “authenticity” in customer service, how about we change this to what it REALLY means:
Your time means nothing to us, as we are currently trying to squeeze another 22% cost reduction out of our customer service department despite a recent doubling of call and email volumes. We’re betting that your frustration won’t be severe enough to actually cause you to stop buying our service. If you do, we won’t notice anyway because we’re short staffing that department too. Oh, and we’ll send you a customer satisfaction survey in the mail shortly. Please send it back. Of course the guy whose jobs it was to actually read them got RIFfed, but at least it will make you think we care. And it will keep you from calling us. Thanks.
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So absolutely, absolutely true. I had a recent incident (or three) with Cingular and wrote to the VP Marketing concluding that I presumed they didn’t really care and would try and fob me off with some “we really care, but we don’t” response and saying that I would be insulted by such a response.
I got a call from “the Office of the President” which turns out to be a do-nothing call center designed to give the illusion they care. They don’t. None of them do. The high cost of acquiring a customer seems to be nothing, because this customer is going as soon as the contract’s up. Cingular’s non-existent customer service drove me away.
Philip