Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for June 07, 2022

They said the quiet part loud, but that how people in customer service feel.

You just know that they’re taking bets on how long you’ll hold on.

I prefer chat apps. There’s a record of what they said, and you can easily multi-task (I usually do that via a solitaire game). You still get anonymous worthless advice, but your ear doesn’t get so tired or/and your battery doesn’t run down so much.

The customer is always a door mat.

i like the ones where they call you back when it is your turn…but a real human is even better…as long as they speak the language of the caller’s nation…

Remember to write down all the names of the people you get transferred to. “But I already told Jack X this, and then I told Jill Y, so why do I have tell you, and what’s your name?” At the very least they’ll feel silly.

Pig, you’re late realising that by roughly 50 years.

That, and they can’t find anyone who will do the job for what they are willing to pay.

You’re expecting old school Nordstrom class customer service these days? :/

La-who, La-Her, I know that meant “Loser” in the nicest way. Wa Wa

A very truthful holding message!

For me it’s usually terrible music!

I’ve never been this old before….and, sadly, I’ll never be this young again!

…and as if you’re still not convinced how important your call is to us, here’s some awful, monotonous on-hold music for 30 minutes or more. Interrupted by the occasional voice ad to give you false hope.

I am 61, and I hate that recently when needing to set up.a repair appointment for my home phone I could not even SPEAK to a person. Everything handled through chat, and even with that, the initial chat was with a bot, before getting a “live agent”

They’re busy calling me to sell me that same lousy service…

One time it was a 3 HOUR HOLD!! If it wasn’t really important, I wouldn’t have bothered, but it was critical.

At least somebody is honest about it.

Had to call the IRS last year (Always called as soon as they opened the lines). First attempt-on hold for 2.5 hours, cut off, second attempt 2 hours, got a person who could not provide any information, third attempt finally got a person that acknowledged they had received my letter and were working on It. It took the IRS 3 months to open my letter, another 2 months to read act on it.

“Your call is important to us, so listen to this 20-minute flute solo.”

Even more annoying is when they have you talk to the recording.

Something is really broken when all the businesses are willing to irritate every single one of their customers in order to save the salary of the lowest-paid employee.

Not ‘is’ but ‘has’.

My age is none of your goldang business – and get off my lawn!

Worse…talking to a robot until it’s so confused after 10 min, it connects to a human…what a bunch of crap!

I just retired after 45 years in retail. Whenever I’d hear this tired, ignorant “HIRE MORE PEOPLE!!” whine I’d say “We’re accepting applications.” That shut those people up quick.

The other day I had one that asked for a call back number. They called back in 25 minutes. I like those.

Yesterday, my WiFi wasn’t working. I called my telecommunications company. Their message told me they were having internal problems and their technicians were working on it. Then the recording told me I could go to their website for assistance. WHAT??

What was your first clue!

The worst thing is that they keep repeating the your call is imporant to us…… Blah blah every thirty seconds or so. Just play the music and pick up when ready!

I do find that if I go online and opt to chat with a service person, a human actually responds quickly and looks into my issue. The phone though? Fugeddaboutit.

Recent extinction events in the United States; the Florida black wolf, the passenger pigeon, the ivory bill woodpecker, the Gull Island vole, the customer service representative. . . . .

Two lies I always hear on these calls: Your call is very important to us, and we are having a higher than usual call volume.

75

74

Next time, enter the store. Pandemic is over, we can do that now!

I recently spent 20 minutes on hold but with a novel improvement. Early in the process (after I had after all been told that there were four callers ahead of me) the automated lady came on again and said I could cancel the elevator music by pressing the star key. Which I promptly did; silence (punctuated by over-frequent updates) was greatly preferable to the distorted lo-fi screedling of the “music”.

Mr.Pastis,you speak for millions.And I work for the phone company!!

So true!

What’s this ‘customer service’ I keep hearing about?

I’m 66 but I don’t look a day over 70.

Customer service is an oxymoron.

I’m 87, live in Vancouver Washington. I am delighted about how wonderful customer service is compared to 10 years ago.

Me

So India is fully employed too?

Really, Pig? It’s been declinging for years.

Probably calling Bombast Cable.

On the contrary, PIg. Not declining, just getting more honest!

NY Times customer service stinks. The artificial editing program jigsaw prevents my comments from being posted, and customer service is unable to get it fixed, the contact, Jeff Shah will not even try. That program is run by google, not the times.

At least they’re not blaming the labor shortage. So much for truth in advertising.

Older than sixty by thirty years.

Thing is, some customers deserve declining customer service

Customer service? I didn’t know that was still a thing.