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Comment by VBprogrammer | Hacker News Reader

I expected this to be about the now common pattern of subjecting people to some shit version of Alexa for 10 minutes before you eventually crack and allow them to sit on hold for someone who might actually be able to solve their problem.

Bonus shit biscuits if you allow them to get to some answer from Brenda (the brainless Alexa clone) where you basically say "great news, you can do this online". As if anyone with half a brain would have have been stupid enough to shout at their phone for 20 minutes trying to get your shitty arse robot to understand them if they could have gone online instead.

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Agreed, the 2 most annoying thing for me when I have to call into a business:

1. "You can find the answers you need online at our website: w w w dot our business name dot com" - First I would never call if I could do what I needed online, second get me to the menu already. I hate waiting 30-60sec+ for a prerecorded message that doesn't tell me anything new.

2. "We are experiencing higher than normal call volume" - Bullshit. I'll bet my right arm that either that message is always there OR you are "somehow" always horribly understaffed which is your problem, not mine. I accepted this at the start of COVID but pretty much every business has left that message in even well after it was reasonable.

Normally we have no calls. Then you came along. Our on call is getting dressed, just a few minutes.

3. "Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed"

That's a good one, as if I've ever remembered or trusted that menu options are the same. It's another one of those useless platitudes that just wastes time. Surely anyone who just hits a number and gets connected to the wrong place will just call back and listen to the options the second time, no need for that useless message.

I'd greatly prefer if they just immediately started listing off menu options.

Also a variant on #1 that drives me batty is when they use that in the "hold music". Every 30-60 seconds the music stops and a voice repeats the BS about how you can find what you need online. It's a tease, you think your call was finally answered, and it rubs salt in wound by advertising something that clearly failed in it's task.

Every 30-60 seconds the music stops and a voice repeats the BS...

...at four times the volume of the hold music, so you can't just set volume and forget it. And when a human comes on, that will be attenuated at least 10dB from what the hold music was.

Pretty sure this is like, did you unplug it, wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in again? They want to say "listen carefully" but have to dress it up a bit so it doesn't sound rude.

I had a recent trip to Japan, wanted to exchange some yen before I left, so I called around to a bunch of local banks and got to experience some exquisitely terrible phone systems.

The worst, and this is a new one to me: you get a 30 second message about how you can do everything online (except ask if they sell foreign currency), and how the menu options have changed, and then you finally pick the option to talk to a teller... and after half a dozen rings with nobody answering, it says "sorry, guess nobody's around" and JUST FUCKING HANGS UP ON YOU.

Also, turns out banks no longer keep foreign currency on-site, not even Wells Fargo which was always a go-to for me. Another case of "COVID gave us an excuse to do what we've been wanting to do for a long time"

Yeah, you gotta give em like a weeks notice and even then they might give you a bad rate.

This has reached new heights when calling USCIS for immigration issues. You have to avoid certain trigger words or the callbot will shunt you into a loop that can only terminate with it sending you an email on how to do something on the website, then hanging up. If you say "operator" it will go on a spiel about how helpful it is and you should ask it a question. If you say "operator" again it will hang up on you. The only way to get to a human is to look in online forums where people share the magic phrases that get it to direct you to an operator. Most of these have followup comments saying "no longer working as of $date". The US government basically hates immigrants or anyone trying to help immigrants and is happy to make things as aggressively unpleasant as possible for them. It isn't a bug, it is intentional.

Don't tell her the truth, make her puzzled.

Few days ago I had to help my grandma with hiding some utility cables behind a cover on a new door. I decided that a guy from tv cable company would be the most experienced with this and called their support. Please describe your issue? TV has no signal (it has). Are you at home? Yes (no). Let me check it... hmm, it's okay on our side. Did you try to rescan channels? Yes (of course not). I'll transfer your call to an operator, please wait. Sure, was nice to meet you too, stupid bot.

Make sure that you "have" a direct service problem and it doesn't align with scripted or online solutions.

As if anyone with half a brain would have have been stupid enough to shout at their phone for 20 minutes trying to get your shitty arse robot to understand them if they could have gone online instead.

There are plenty of people who call-first, to be fair.

Ignore the voice tree. Just shout profanities or "representative". Decent systems will pick up your frustration and divert you to the human queue.

This often works, but not always. And it's not always clear when it does work; the systems don't usually say something like, "Since you would like to set our entire executive leadership team on fire, we will transfer you to the next available agent."

If it's a subscription service, you can just say you're calling to cancel. If anything will get you on with a person, that will.

Yes I thought it was going to be about the true hell that is calling any company now. Phone menus for at least a minute and then connected to someone with long Covid and/or new hire that has no idea what they are doing or forgot how. Then transferred to another and another and another. Covid annihilated customer service.

It was terrible before, I'm not sure Covid could have made it any worse.

I don't know if it's directly due to Covid, as the grandparent asserts, but it's pretty indisputable that the quality of customer service has eroded across pretty much every industry sector, at least in the US. This could be due to companies generally being short-staffed, but it does seem like even when you interact with someone the intelligence level (or maybe more charitably, the experience level) of the people you interact with has gone down.

Yeah I can see that. Calling big companies has been terrible forever, but customer service in physical stores has gone downhill. Mostly they all seem short-staffed. Seems like lots of stores let people go, and didn't replace them in favor of self-checkout systems.

Really grinds my gears when you go into a physical store and they say "oh, we don't have that but you can order it on our website!"

Bit of self reflection required about thier likely employment prospects.

I had such a good (in-person) customer service experience last Spring I have to mention it here. Wife and I upgraded our phones. We both subscribe to month-to-month cell services, so we always buy unlocked phones from Apple. The problem is, Apple no longer sells unlocked phones from a physical U.S. Apple store unless you are signed up with a major carrier. The Genius who helped us with our purchase recognized the problem and logged on to the online Apple store and helped us order our new phones from a different, still-close-by Apple store, for pickup the next day. Though we picked up at the store, the order was placed online (by the kind Genius) and we avoided the major cell carrier requirement.

Quick tip - screaming profanities at the voice assistant typically takes you directly to a customer support person. (Obviously, don't scream obscenities at the customer support person)

Not sure if you'll understand all the Scottishness here but I think you'll appreciate the message...

https://youtu.be/TqAu-DDlINs

Add a couple minutes about how the call is being recorded and there's nothing I can do about it

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