I Hope This Call Was Recorded

In the name of balance, yin & yang, or because I'm a Libra, I feel I must visit another side of this topic.

I avoid calling ANYWHERE like the plague. In fact, given the choice and modern antibiotics I would probably take a bit of the ol' bubonic over the 7 minutes it will take to navigate an IVR (interactive voice response for those of you not in the know) get to the agent and get whatever it is done.

Let us discuss the IVR. The person who came up with this is a bastard. A partially deaf bastard. I live in Canada. You cannot have a voice response system that does not understand French last names. (Yeah that one is for you Scotiabank). Plus, the whole reason companies have voice recognition is belittling. They are assuming we can't listen to options and press appropriate buttons.Oh, never mind. How many times have I been freaked out at by someone who pressed whatever they felt like then had to be transferred? Still, don't be cheap with the software or people like me will just bail on you. 

Usually by the end of 4 minutes the system bitch is talking to me like I'm the idiot "You seem to be having difficulties I will HAVE to transfer you to an agent" while I am going completely ballistic trying to pronounce my mother's insanely common last name every way possible. Really. The customer should not have to go through this. 

"Laliberte" "I'm sorry I did not get that can you please repeat your mother's maiden name" "LA LEE BEAR TAY" " For security purposes please repeat your mother's maiden name" "Lallybertie?" "I'm sorry I did not understand can you please say your mother's maiden name" "LA FUCKING LIBERTEEEE!!!!!!!!! AAAHHHHHHHHH" "You seem to be experiencing difficulties hold while I transfer you to an agent who may be able to assist you"

I always wonder if management gets to listen to that part of the call. Usually once I get a person I'm all calm and sweet. I would love to be in the room while the suits get an earful of every curse word known to man and God and everyone else's name taken very very vainly.

Like come on, really? Way to set up the employees and customers for a wonderful interaction. Thank you. Seriously, that was sooo worth the cut to our pension and a price increase. And the the calls generated by the price increase that end up in the IVR and are so fun for the employees to deal with that in the end the attempt to keep people from having to talk to the people to cut costs ends up increasing absenteeism and the company ends up having even angrier customers and has to give coupons or credits and more employees stress out and benefits has to pay out more for sick time and happy pills and alcohol rehab.

I don't know ANYONE who works at a call center and does not either drink, take anti-depressants, self medicate, emotionally over-eats, is religiously "eccentric", obsessively controls every other aspect of their lives or is just a big weirdo. Oddly there are a lot of people with skin conditions too. Or at least ones that flare up once they start taking calls. Its a petrie dish of mental illness. Grad students and journalists should be going undercover in these places.

This is why it always stuns me when I have to make a call and get someone fabulous. It stuns me even more when I call a company more than twice and get excellent customer service. It makes me all warm and fuzzy. I want to say "I feel your pain, I know you are dying inside with every call you take, I'm sorry I had to do it, I tried online, nothin, help me and I will tell your manager you're good."

I do it too. Telus, Shaw, and PC Mobile are companies I deal with on a regular regular basis and get consistently great service. Their people know please AND thank you, BOTH! Some, even say "may I". Call me old fashioned but I heart manners. I really really do. Also, none of these companies have EVER screwed up my billing. Ever. In YEARS!

Telus blows me away when I talk to an agent and they find me a way to save money. Out of the blue the rep will go " If I do this you can save however much a month want me to go ahead?". Then even crazier, my billing doesn't go all stupid for six months after that. Really, it all falls into place even if its in the middle of the billing cycle they actually do the math, correctly, and I have heard that if they do fuck up, THEY FIX IT!!!!!!

Now mind you I may have had to do unsavory things to actually get past the IVR to speak to these people but let's not dwell on that and by golly it was worth it.

I really do send emails or talk to supervisors or tell the agent right then that they were awesome. Maybe they think its a suck up so they put "nice lady" and not "evil hag" in the remarks field of my account but I don't care, I think they deserve a bit of recognition. We all know its shit work. You who are arseholes on either end of the phone know it. You KNOW what you do, and hopefully understand that no matter what prayers you say Hell's ironic punishment department is working overtime to get the place ready for you, and buddy who invented the IVR. You should see what they have cooked up for HIM!