Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for July 15, 2016

I worked for a dot com in the early naughts. The joke in the customer service department was, “our company motto should be ‘sorry for the inconvenience.’”

Yet another reason to take the train.

I like comics with a message that I can relate to. This applies to airlines, banks, department stores, and especially to the IRS in the early spring. Thanks Rat for voicing my feelings.

The hold music at an office where I used to work streamed the local classical radio station. One day I picked up and the guy said, “can you put me back on hold, I want to hear the rest of that.”

They will say that. Many big companies don’t care about the public opinion unless it affects them directly.

I’m worried. Lately, I’m thinking I rather like Rat. Sorta my hero, ya know?

Pet peeves -1) “We are experiencing a high volume of calls during open enrollment” – That was 8 months ago2) “Please listen carefully as our options have changed” – That was 2 years ago.3) 15 minutes of traversing their option menus (none of which address your issue) before pressing “0” is activated to allow you to speak to a representative.

One of our vendors recently changed their menu to drop the Contact a Live body option entirely. I have figured out how to get around that though. When I am calling I need to speak with their night Operations people about files that I submitted for processing. No contact is not a valid option.

I can really relate to this. The latest one with my bank is "we currently have a high volume of calls " to justify keeping callers hanging on. Why don’t they tell the truth which is, “We have sacked most of our call centre staff in order to make our fat profits even fatter. so bugger off”

They’re just hopeful a high percentage of us will finally be frustrated enough to just go away. I don’t give them that satisfaction.

It’s worse than that: They don’t love you or hate you, they neither appreciate your business nor want to lose it. They. Just. Don’t. Care.

What the message says: “All of our operators are assisting other customers.”.What they actually mean: “We have two operators. They’re both out right now hunting for Pokemon.”

Any company that puts you on hold is admitting they are too cheap and/or incompetent to hire a sufficient number of staff members.

There are so many horror stories on this subject. I bet most people have one.One of my personal faves was when I was calling a friend who worked at a large bank I won’t identify here. The recorded voice that answered the main number said “Thank you for calling XYZ Bank. Not like every other bank.” Thereby proving, as I told my friend, that they were exactly like every other bank. Anyone foolish enough to do business with a Big Bank deserves what they get – NOTHING.

My ISP has taken this to a new level. Now even their on-line help/support/customer service is a computer program. You CANNOT reach a human being either on the phone or on-line, not even one in India. You can’t even get a form to fill out to tell them what problem you’re experiencing in the hope that someone, somewhere, will actually read it and respond to you eventually. Makes me wonder how much of a bonus the executives got for cutting company expenses.

My comment or complaint is why do company “IT” departments keep changing there platforms(Yahoo and TD Ameritrade and many others come to mind) Usually these changes make things take longer to do ! When you E-mail there suggestion department you find out that there are 1685 other folks with the same comments but the powers that may be still do not listen and keep changing things. If it is not broken please do not fix it !

This is what Rat gets for calling Trump (rhymes with CHUMP) Airlines!

“We’re not happy until you’re not happy.”

LOL Rat in the second panel

Customer service; right up there with common courtesy, common sense and military intelligence,

I may be the odd one out here, because there are times I prefer to deal with the automated system, especially when I know what the problem is and simply need the cable modem reset. Was rather annoyed when they removed the option to do that without talking to a “technician” because it takes at least three times as long when dealing with an actual person. Automation is not always a bad thing, as long as there is an option to get live help if you want/need it.

Of course, for the overworked, understaffed, service department, all those people on hold mean a very long wait before they get to take a break.Doesn’t make me any less cranky when I’m on hold, of course.

When I had my first computer, the service center was in California. When I would get the message “all of our representatives are busy”, I assumed “Surf’s Up!”.

If you were really sorry for the inconvenience you would answer the f…..g phone.

LOL! It looks like Rat coughed up a remote control in second panel! XD

It’s the same reason I don’t shop at WalMart. There are no employees in the store, and when you want to check out, there are only two employees at the check stand, and they are both on the twelfth hour of their first day. Customer service counts, and I’d rather pay a few pennies more to leave on time.

“Your call is important to us, just not THAT important….”

I don’t always agree with Rat but he just nailed it. I can’t believe how often you hear the annoying statement how much they appreciate my business & keep holding until I’ve grown a full beard. What’s even worse is after holding like an hour the line just goes dead. That’s a real burn

Tax the h377 out of businesses that do this. Shareholder satisfaction? Great idea! Make the shareholders VERY dissatisfied if their company sucks.

" Maizing said, about 2 hours ago

@water_moon

Or when you call your ISP because your internet is out… and the recording tells you that you can access the menu on their web site."

This! It always annoyed me about Frontier. Haven’t had issues with our new provider yet, and it’s been almost a year. :)

I called a government agency – Please listen as our menu has changed. Press # for …, press # for …, press # for …, press # for …, press # for other assistance. That puts you back to Please listen as our menu has changed. Press # for … .

What this agency and a lot of business with these type of recordings should actually say,

Thank you for your money. Hang up now. We do not want to communicate with you beyond accepting your money.

Thirty-one times in a row with a two and a half to five minute pause between each time. And that’s after you pressed the selection to get a live person rather than deal with the machine.

I would appreciate some honestly. Something like, “Your call is important to us….but your time isn’t.”

you’re screwed and we are amused, as we count your now our money for not giving you service – suckah!!!!

Well I love this strip, but here’s the conv of 2 family cicrus fans

FC fan 1: "this strip is waaay to dark! FC fan 2 And to sweary, lets get it booted from every paper, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

Funny how “you’re screwed” is OK with the language police yet the F-word variation is not.

Your call is important to us because we earn a quarter pr. minute.

Yup. You’re absolutely right, Rat.So, what are you going to do about it? Still flying that same airline, right?Wouldn’t you like to create just a little mayhem at corporate HQ, hmm?…

Love that middle panel ….. Go Rat!

Now that sounds more like the airlines. I especially love it when they tell me to visit their website….usually the one I am calling about because it doesn’t work.

I used to deal with a doctor’s office that used the exact same recording. I always checked to see that I’d actually put the right number in.

The only time I’ve enjoyed a “hold” music was from calling Nintendo back in 2007 over a broken Wii console. The song was the title screen from “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess”. Good times…