I
sometimes have this Kafka-esque dream in which I'm a child frantically
trying to place a phone call. There's always some terrible emergency
playing itself out around me—like, the house is on fire, the
dog has swallowed poison or my baby sister has pushed a fishhook up
her nose.
In this dream everything
conspires to keep me from making the call. I usually find myself out
on the street desperately looking for a payphone. There's not one
to be found anywhere. When one finally and miraculously appears, I
don't have a quarter. Then when someone gives me a quarter I can't
remember the phone number, which has a hundred digits. I try Directory
Assistance. They have the number but now I don't have anything on
which to write it. I find some paper and a pencil. I get the number.
Now I need another quarter. Got it. Hurry, dial the number. Dammit,
I can't see the buttons! Then, half way through the agonizingly slow
process of dialing the number I realize I made a mistake. I start
all over again. More quarters. More groping for the buttons in the
dark. Finally, I'm connected. It's ringing. Please, can someone help
us?
Sorry kid, wrong number.
A psychiatrist would no
doubt have a lot of fun analyzing the source of my nocturnal neurosis.
But I can save her the time, and me the money. Surely it's stress-related,
and in times of stress I often revert back to memories of my childhood.
One of those memories is
of my family's first telephone. It was one of those heavy black instruments
with a rotary dial that you see in movies like Rear Window.
We had a party line, which means that our connection was shared with
a couple of other neighbors. Each household had its own unique ringone
long, two shorts, a long and a short. That's how you knew if you should
answer the phone or to just let it ring because someone was calling
the Schaffers next door.
Our telephone was not something
to be taken lightly. I think it was revered second only to the family
bible and it had its own special place on a little table in the hallway
between the living room and the kitchen. You had to have a darn good
reason for using it. "Well, dear, we haven't invited the Grays over
for quite awhile now. Should we ask them over next time we run into
them, or should I use the telephone?"
Our family's "reverence"
toward our telephone continued even into my teenage years and was
often a source of embarrassment. You sure as hell thought twice before
phoning for a date. Because of where the phone was located, the whole
damn family got to hear every word of your stuttering proposal.
Yet however misplaced our
respect for the telephone may have been in those days, I wish there
was more of it today. The proliferation of public cell phone abuse
and irritating telemarketers are just two examples of how the poor
telephone gets no respect anymore. Speaker phones are another. And
let's not forget conference calls. When's the last time you got off
one of those and thought, Wow, what a great conference call—I
wish it could have lasted another hour?
But the mother of all telephone
disrespect is the corporate automated answering system—the menu
selection game. "To speak to a representative please press '9'." Yeah,
sure. And just when is it that this so-called representative is going
to speak with me? Anytime today, perhaps?
The automated answering
system is insulting enough. But the insult becomes even more flagrant
when every five minutes you're told your call is important. Bullshit.
A call is not important if it is not answered—period. The action
speaks louder than the words. Let's get one thing cleared up right
now. Your call is not important to anyone except you. It's not important
to the company, it's not important to the person you eventually speak
with and it certainly is not important to the actor who made that
stupid recording. I mean, do you really think the Moviephone man gives
a shit whether or not you go see the latest Julia Roberts film? Come
on.
Having gotten that off
my chest, why SHOULD your call be important, you silly consumer? I
mean let's face it, taking phone calls from customers is not exactly
the stuff high-flying careers are made of. The CEO doesn't go home
to his wife at the end of the day and say, Wow, dear, you should have
heard some of the interesting calls our people received today. And
he certainly didn't get to where he is by listening to your piddly
little problems. Nor is the technical support guy thinking he's going
to get a promotion because he handled your call so lovingly. No, no
one cares about your call. Get over it. "Your call is important to
us" has joined the ranks of the world's greatest lies—right up
there with, "Your check is in the mail," and, "I'm from the government
and I'm here to help you."
Still, businesses persist
in their efforts to create this mythological Emerald City persona
of a company in which all its Munchkins are running around making
the customer feel important. "We appreciate your business. . . Thank
you for your patience. . . In order to serve you better. . . All of
our representatives are busy helping other customers." Yeah, yeah,
follow the yellow brick road. Don't they realize that all of that
appreciating, serving and helping makes everyone suspicious right
from the get-go?
The nightmare begins with
something like, "For quality and training purposes this call may be
recorded." Come on folks, who do you think you're kidding? The only
reason you are recording the call is to cover your ass in case I decide
to sue you later.
In between the proclamations
of how important your call is you are also given subtle hints as to
just what a bother you really are. For example, a favorite tactic
is to try to divert you to the company's website where for sure your
stupid question has already been answered for hundreds of other obtuse
people just like yourself. Little do they realize, of course, that
that's why you're calling in the first place. Just where the hell
on your website IS that little bit of information I need to solve
my problem? If I had an hour to spend drilling through your slow,
disorganized, and anemic website I wouldn't be calling you in the
first place.
And while I'm at it, have
you ever tried to find a company's address on its website? Good luck.
If it's listed at all it is usually buried ten layers deep under the
"Contact Us" link. And "Contact Us" mostly means send us an e-mail
so we can take our old sweet time about getting back to you. What's
that? You actually want to call our headquarters? Fuggedaboudit!
Or how about this one?
Clearly, dear customer, you're just not up to speed on the nuances
of our business. You haven't done your homework and you need to learn
the terms of our industry before we can even begin to speak with you.
Recently, not being able to find the information on a website—while
I was on hold—a pre-recorded message suggested that I might want
to try the company's fax service. So I pressed that option and punched
in my fax number. Sure enough, a few seconds later my fax machine
sputtered out four pages of technical gobbledygook.
Why is it that companies
can't get it through their collective thick skulls that I don't want
to master their business? If I own a car (which I don't) I just want
to know how to start the engine and where to put the gas. I don't
need to know how the transmission is connected to the drive shaft.
If I have a problem with my transmission I'll take it to a mechanic.
Computer and internet-related businesses are the worst at this. They
just haven't gotten the word yet.
Another one of my favorites
is the now familiar, "In order to serve you better . . " routine.
In order to serve you better you'd "better" have all of your ducks
in a row BEFORE you place that call, buddy. That means, have your
credit card ready, your social security number, your computer's serial
number (can you even find it?)—and my all-time favorite—the
tracking number from the LAST time you called and we gave you that
wrong information.
But wait! I'm being connected!
I'm no longer on hold. Maybe my call really is important to them.
Maybe they really were helping other customers. Maybe they really
do appreciate my patience. Maybe this really isn't a dream I'm having.
Enght—buzz! Thank
you for playing, sucker. You think you're so smart because you got
through to us? Well, the stakes have now been raised. Now we're going
to smother you with kindness
And this is where they
get you. "Hello, my name is John and how can I be of service to you
today?" Did I make a mistake? Have I been on hold all this time with
The Olive Garden instead of Microsoft?
And the truth is, most
of the customer support people that I've dealt with really are very
pleasant—and for the most part quite knowledgeable. The techies
and the customer service staff are not the problem. As I've always
said, the fish rots from the head. My call may not be important to
John, but at least he is nice about it. The problem is, my call is
not important to John's boss—or his boss' boss.
Today it's no longer enough
to just be put on hold and told your call is important. Smart businesses
realize that customers have grown thick skins from their put-on-hold
abuse. With speaker phones, call holding and multiple phone lines,
some of us can stay on hold for days and still continue to go about
our work. So the new approach, in case you haven't noticed yet, is
to tell the customer that the company is just too busy to take her
call. Period. Call back later. You gotta give them credit for chutzpah.
So what's the problem?
If we know that our business is not really important why can't we
just accept it as a bald-faced lie? After all, we don't get upset
at TV commercials that promise the impossible. Most folks pretty much
accept the 30-second spot for what it is—just another lie. Like
"military intelligence", "truth in advertising" is an oxymoron.
We seldom harbor high expectations for the product being hawked—even
if the product is a phone service.
But the telephone is more
than a "product." It is more than a mere instrument of communication.
Like the horse—and later the automobile—the telephone is
an assurance of one's independence and freedom. It is essential to
survival. Hell, it used to be that if you stole someone's horse you
got hung. Businesses that put you on hold while telling you your call
is important to them are the moral equivalent of horse thieves. They're
grand theft auto. They are messing with your basic stuff. And that's
why it bothers us so much.
"If you know your party's
extension, please press 1. If not, enter the first four letters of
your party's last name."
Hell no I don't know my
party's extension. And by the way, just where is that party?
Did you ever try to punch
in those first four letters of your "party's" last name? Take "Bradley,"
for example. That shouldn't be too hard, right? B.R.A.D. Let's see.
Ok, "B" is #
2. Got it. Next is "R." Where the hell is R? R! R! Where ARE you,
R? There it is— # 7. Got it! Now
on to the "A." That should be easy. A is the first letter of the alphabet.
So to make up for the time you lost finding R, you quickly press #
1. Enght! Thanks again for playing. "A" may the first letter of the
alphabet, but it's the SECOND number on the phone! Now you've really
done it. Now you've screwed up bigtime. Now you get to start all over
again.
The good news is, I'm having
fewer of those nightmares about using the telephone. They're being
replaced by waking reality.
©
Copyright 2001, Richard Bradley. All rights reserved.
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