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Comment by tvanantwerp | Hacker News Reader

In my experience, companies value call center staff so little that turnover is extremely high. That means that you're unlikely to speak to someone with enough experience to solve your problems correctly. I can't count how many times I've had to call a company half-a-dozen times and received half-a-dozen different wrong or unhelpful responses. I'd like calling to be more available, but I don't believe it's a silver bullet solution.

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My first job was a small e-commerce shop that had a one person on customer support. We couldn’t keep them and the owner would say your typical stuff like everyone’s lazy etc. Well one month we had trouble finding someone so I picked up the phones when I can and…

It’s not just the company and it’s owners who think so little of CS. Almost every caller was obviously someone with an issue and they had no problem venting their frustration at the person on the phone. I began to dread every phone call and would do all of the things I hate when calling a place. I put people on indefinite holds, I let the phones ring a little more than I should hoping they would give up and hang up etc. Worst part was a felt for these people, a lot of their complaints were valid and a lot of the times they deserved a refund etc but there was nothing I could do to help.

I’m an extrovert who loves talking with people and In my younger days I worked everything from a nasty bug ranch to construction, hard jobs that didn’t pay enough with unnecessarily mean bosses, and that month of answering phones was the worst working experience of my life. I know not every place is that level of bad but I’m not sure a number you could pay me that would be worth the stress.

> I put people on indefinite holds, I let the phones ring a little more than I should hoping they would give up and hang up etc.

The people who call into customer service are those with issues they want to have addressed. By throwing up roadblocks, you're making it even harder for them to get to a solution. They expect the people on the line to provide help, but this behavior puts them in an adversarial mindset by the time they actually talk to someone.

It does seem a like a tragedy of the commons situation here: people only have so much empathy to give, so we all individually pull back, which makes everyone worse off.

I think they understand that logically.

But they are put in a position where that is their least painful move. The incentives are wrong due to poor management.

Yeah I was in the wrong for sure, I am not qualified to be a customer support rep and I was a web dev at that job who picked up the slack for an infilled position. I was just trying trying to explain that dehumanization goes both ways and that is why CS is such a crappy field in almost every aspect.

As frustrated as we get with these systems we have to remember there’s a human on the other side and no one wants to be engaging with each other + most companies don’t have CS to actually help anyone they do so to check of a box and prevent any potential legal issues from popping up. In a lot of places, especially commerce related, those you speak to don’t even have many/any tools to resolve your complaint. The job is quite literally being a punching bag, if you manage to help someone that’s little more than a nice to have.

I don't doubt being a rep is difficult. However, if customers were able to reach someone quickly without enduring maddening phone trees and were able to speak with someone who was friendly and actually empowered to provide help, I think the customers would generally be pleasant to work with. So I don't think aggressive customers are the only problem. A lot of the issue can be resolved by the company's willingness to truly help their customers. A company that is willing to commit to training and managing their staff and empowering them to be helpful will generally be greeted with delighted customers.

I’m not sure what you’re saying - IF everything were different, things would be better? Sure, but we live in a reality where CS is expensive but also underpaid and customers are mean.

There's a lot of things companies can do to make it easier for customers. I try live chatting all the time and it's typically answering 10 questions for a stupidly dumb bot, finally getting someone online and then answering the exact same questions. Then telling CS my issue in detail and being given a macro answer that ignores everything I just wrote.

The level of training of CS is bad in a lot of companies and I can become that mean customer. I don't use abusive language but I'm upset having to explain myself repeatedly and getting nowhere.

I think you hit on something here. In phone situations where I'm able to help, I've found them to be generally positive, even if the person started off a little angry. It's the ones where you're stuck between company policy and an angry customer who also happens to be in the right where it really grinds you down. That said, there's only so much you can take of people coming in angry at you and having to cheer every single one of them up.

> companies value call center staff so little that turnover is extremely high.

As do governments. No email address responses, no phone callback options. Messages that say “high call volume, call back next business day”.

I assume evil intent because any reasonable person would offer to respond to emails or return a phone call.

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