Touch-Tone Hell Blog
From the Blog
Wide Awake in Wonderland
http://wideawakeinwonderland.wordpress.com/2008/09/28/brought-to-my-knees-by-the-bank-of-america/
I called them that afternoon, but they’re only open 8am to 5pm (of course). When I got to Croatia yesterday evening, I called again. Actually, I called ELEVEN TIMES – all collect, and anywhere from ten to thirty minutes per call. I spent two hours and thirty seven minutes calling. And each and every time I was transferred to the wrong department or the wrong area, and eventually ended up in one of two of Dante’s layers of call center hell:
-
A queue in which there is some very chipper music that reminds me of The Sims, but which starts to make you feel homicidal after about thirty minutes. I could totally sing you the tune if you were here. Anyway, it is regularly interrupted by a male voice that says, “Your expected wait time is at least five minutes.” Then it starts saying, “Your expected wait time is approximately two minutes” and you start to feel hopeful…for ten minutes. And then back to the five minutes, no wait two minutes, five minutes, two minutes…until finally there is a silence and a sound of fumbling, and you’re hung up on. That exact scenario happened three times.
-
You have to interact with this CRM system where you must speak to it. Again, it’s a male voice and he sounds pleasant enough. This is to mask the fact that he is actually the devil.
“Please tell me a little about why you’re calling today.”
“My debit card is not working.”
“Okay, did you say you’d like to hear about a loan?”
“NO.”
“Okay. Please tell me a little about why you’re calling today.”
“ My DEBIT CARD will not WORK in the ATM.”
“Okay, did you say you’re looking for an ATM location?”
“NO.”
“Okay. Please tell me a little about why you’re calling today.”
“I CAN’T GET ANY MONEY OUT OF THE F**KING ATM.”
“I didn’t quite get that, could you repeat it?”
“CUSTOMER SERVICE. CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!
“I didn’t quite get that, could you repeat it?”
“IF YOU DON’T CONNECT ME TO A HUMAN BEING IN THE NEXT THIRTY SECONDS, I AM GOING TO FLY TO THE UNITED STATES AND BURN DOWN ONE OF YOUR BRANCHES.”
“Okay, let me connect you…”
Silence. Sound of Croatian dial tone.
originally posted on:
http://communitygrouptherapy.com/2007/06/18/customer-service-hell-t-mobilehot-spot-not/
I can’t believe it!!! Over the past few months I’ve launched a blog all about the power and value of the customer voice in the web 2.0 world. I’ve blogged about and read dozens of stories from “Dell Hell” to the more recent Digg / HD DVD controversy which tell powerful stories of customer “web-swarming” on bad service experiences. I’ve been reading Word of Mouth Marketing, Citizen Marketers, and The Influentials. Suffice it to say, I’m alert to the issues. Even still, I never dreamed I’d have my own experience that so infuriated me that I’d be compelled to write the story…so here goes. This is a little long…but please read it!!
A quick search online tells me I’m hardly alone in my frustration with T-Mobile, but I simply have to tell this story. A few weeks ago my phone (T-Mobile Dash pictured below) developed a problem. I’ve had this phone for several months, and was quickly a big fan of the features, form factor, even the battery life I thought was good. I’ve always been pretty neutral on the carrier - in the end, as long as I have quality coverage at a reasonable price, I don’t really care. T-Mobile changed that for me today…
You Don't Have Any and Big Business Counts on It
Have you ever called a major corporation’s 800 number only to be trapped in a maze of automated questions that have to be answered all over again if yo ever actually reach a real person? Of course you have and you didn’t like it at all. However, as much as you don’t like that experience, corporations know that you like listening to hold music even less.
Studies indicate that customers who are on hold listening to music have a distorted perception of time that makes them believe they are waiting longer than they actually are. The longer a customer believes they are on hold, the more agitated they become when the representative finally answers the phone. To change this perception companies give callers “busy” work to keep them occupied to reduce the perceived amount of elapsed time. They do not want the caller to notice that they do not keep a compliment of representatives large enough to cut down the hold time to something most callers would consider reasonable. It’s not an accident. It’s economics and it’s a science.
Originally posted on:
http://blog.tmcnet.com/call-center-crm/call-center-confusion-for-medicare.asp
CRM, salesforce automation, knowledge management and quality management all exist for a very good reason: to avoid creating nightmare scenarios like the one the U.S. government and the call centers it has contracted have made over the Medicare Plan D.
This article reveals that calls to different call centers about the Medicare Plan will garner radically different and conflicting responses, and not a single call center tested has been able to offer correct answers much more than half of the time.
No wonder today's seniors are confused over the Medicare Plan. It's hard not to become confused when you aren't starting with the correct information to begin with.
Below is the official U.S. government Web site for information about Medicare Plan D. Let's hope it's a tad more accurate than the call centers covering the issue.
Cox News Service
Published 8/29/04
I'm mad about technology.
But not in a good way. Sure I love the stuff. But sometimes I get just plain angry.
Each day of my working life, I get e-mails and calls from readers with horror stories to tell. Most of them are about what consumer advocate Clark Howard calls customer non-service. Bad service is a national epidemic, and it is getting worse.