The computerized, female voice's main purpose is to sound pleasant and kind so no matter how frustrated or angry I am to begin with, the gentleness in the voice should calm me. It should be able to decrease any anxiety levels and heart rates for all annoyed customers. And it should give me a sense of 'good customer service is happy customer service' but that's just never the case. In order to direct me to any resolution, she puts me through a series of menus to narrow down the possibilities. And if she fails, then I'm put on hold for a half an hour for the next LIVE representative to assist me. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I'm immediately taken to a main menu where she begins to break down general categories to correspond appropriately with my issues. But, herein, lies my problem. The menus are too long for me to follow because every time I start the process, I get distracted by something or someone; or worse, my mind starts wandering off. For example, I suddenly think of something else that I need to add to the grocery list or remind myself of some appointment or phone call I need to return. Before I know it, the voice says, "If you missed any part of this menu, press * to repeat or say 'go back'".
Okay. "Go Back."
The menu begins...again and I force myself to concentrate this time to really focus on which number I need to press. Well, guess what, I got further than '2' and managed to get to '8' but now she gave me options and I'm not sure which one to go with.
At this point, I'm thinking to myself, 'If this were a real person, this would go a lot faster. He or she can just answer my simple question and then I can go on about my life.'
So I press '0' to direct me straight to the operator. Right? Unfortunately, no. Companies have become more and more impersonal and lazy that they added an even more upsetting feature in this agonizing process just to avoid anymore human contact. I press '0' and she responds back, "I understand you wish to speak with a representative but before you do, I may be of assistance. Now, how can I help? You can say things like..."
I find myself pressing '0' again but the message continues to repeat. Without thinking, I blurt out, "If I didn't wanna speak to a representative, I wouldn't have pressed '0'." Okay, now I'm talking to a computer as if it would understand. My patience has now reached its pinnacle. This is not a convenience to me as the computer earlier explained.
At times, I do get to speak to a LIVE person but then I run into this: 'Well, ma'am, I do apologize for this inconvenience but I'm going to transfer you to our specialist who can better assist you." Translation: "Well, ma'am, I have no idea how to fix your problem because I know very little about my job nor my company and its services and products but I'm going to pass the buck over to our specialist who SHOULD have an answer for you." So after being transferred to a rep and the rep's supervisor and the specialist, I'm now explaining my issue for the third or fourth time. Would you believe that the "specialist" didn't have a definitive answer for me? His answer was, "You should try this and then it should be able to work."
Me: "And if it doesn't work, then what?"
Specialist: "I'd log onto our website periodically and check for any upgrades."
What I wanted to say was, "Are you kidding me, right now?! That's your specialist's answer?! This doesn't help my issue NOW. If it doesn't work with what I have then don't advertise it like it does! We expect your products to work not glitch out on us."
Me: (sigh) "Okay."
Irritated and annoyed, one word came out and not in a very pleasant tone.
Specialist: "I do apologize for this. Is there anything else I can assist you with?"
Me: "Apparently, no."
Specialist: "Then, we thank you for calling...feel free to call us again if you have anymore problems...or you may go online at yada yada yada..."
Me: Click.
So, here's the end result. I'm annoyed because this one phone call that could have taken all but 5 minutes, had I've spoken to real person in the first place, took 30+ minutes of my life and in the end never fixed my one problem.
Hello, Operator? Hello??
Side note: The conversation between the specialist and myself was much longer. I actually drilled him with questions of possible scenarios, in hopes, he could give me a different answer. Which, of course, resulted in his 'upgrade' suggestion.
Sent from my BlackBerry® on the MetroPCS Network
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