Lots of "customer support" is literally just lying people to get them off the phone and hope they give up. It's pretty clear that's what this is. They have no incentive to help, so they dont.
When I called customer support, they were overly supportive and outraged. It was very suspicious and obviously feigned. The guy there said that he would contact the post office immediately and get back to me! No worries! My package would turn up soon, it was clear that it was delivered to the post office! He could understand my frustration and would get to the bottom of this! Etc.
Nothing happened. A few days later I had an idea and went to the post office again. The same guy was there, remembering my case. He still insisted that the package never arrived there. Nobody from customer support or package tracking had ever contacted him, and the package wasn't even marked as missing. When I asked him to check if he had placed it in his "system" not based on my name, but on the name of the sender, he condescendingly laughed it off. But sure enough, that was exactly what happened.
When someone deals day in and day out with abusive customers who are sure of things that are just flat wrong it has a predictable effect on the persons handling of legitimate cases.
It's not good, it's not just, but it's understandable. Armed with that understanding we can at least try to self-help by making ourselves look as little like the bad customers as we can. Should we have to? Not according to how things should be. But how things should be isn't what counts in the world, how things are is what matters. And at the end of the day-- do you want your package or not?
I think I'd also say that abusive from the perspective of the recipient isn't a bright line and you'd be hard pressed to find a culture in the developed world where the misguided interactions don't begin to feel somewhat abusive to the recipient after dealing with them day after day.
Of course, there is also outright abuse that is tolerated in the US and probably ought not be which only makes the matters worse.
Same is true in retail or in this example imo - the worst employees are the ones that behave this way and rationalize their bad behavior.
So yeah. People are leeches and sheep and feel some odd need to interact on simple transactions.
Since I'd rather those unskilled workers be actually doing a job [1] rather than my taxes paying for them to be on welfare while being disgruntled that they don't have a job, I purposefully do not use automated check out or do not use the machines.
Of course you can keep thinking that everyone who doesn't do the same thing you do are leeches or sheep and don't actually have a clear reason for why they do it but maybe try and learn to keep an open mind and be more empathetic about the world.
[1] Assuming the shops passes the savings of having automated checkouts to their customers, I would be paying slightly more to subsidize their salary (of course, I'm rather doubtful that the shops would pass on the savings)
In my view, just bring on UBI already.
And yes, I know, plus self checkout is generally faster especially since a lot of supermarkets now only have less checkout lanes. So, most people will chose convenience and avoiding human interactions over ideals. I just wanted to explain to the OP that is assumption that people who decide not to use automated checkouts or automated shipping label creation might not be because they are sheeps or leeches.
But with regard to how to preserve social opportunities under UBI, I think the Nordic countries suggest the best approach. There in places of terminal unemployment where quite a lot of people are already on the dole, the state also offers a large amount of social and cultural infrastructure: libraries, concerts, clubhouses, etc. Sure, some people choose nevertheless to drink their lives away, but there are productive ways to spend one’s time. Conversely, I think things would be a lot tougher in countries like the US where everything is privatized and the decline of “third places” has been a trend already for decades now.
I mean I've lived in a few countries, I've socialized with the cashier from the local supermarket in France after seeing the same person 20+ more times. I currently live in Hong Kong and after going often enough to some restaurants I've socialized with the waiters, chef, etc. Including becoming friend with the owner. I've done the same while living in Japan where I became good friend with a cashier at my local supermarket who was a student working part time and was invited to her wedding and became friends with restaurants owners too by coming often enough (I'd say Japan makes it easier than in other countries because people expect to meet other in small restaurants when sitting around the counter, see Midnight Diner on netflix for an example of that culture). I've also had similar experience in Malaysia, especially with street sellers. I feel that once you keep seeing the same faces repeatedly, over time you can start making a connexion. And at least that's held true in every countries I've lived in.
I haven't lived long enough in the US to say if that would work and I do think that it works better with walkable cities where local supermarkets/grocery stores in the center of the city are tiny...
Probably not; the whole point of UBI is to make it easier for people to have and transition jobs (compared to means-tested welfare) and to survive when the the valie of their labor in the economy is low, not to eliminate work.
UBI is conceived to enable more people to work, at better jobs on average, than not having UBI (by not penalizing people for work the way means-tested welfare does, and by enabling voluntary transitional breaks from work for retraining or taking a temporary downgrade to get on a career path that doesn't dead end as soon, etc.)
I like a later analysis of the Butlerian Jihad from Leto II of Dune (https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Butlerian_Jihad) that says
> "I point out to you […] a lesson learned from past over-machined societies which you appear not to have learned. The devices themselves condition the users to employ each other the way they employ machines."
The more we use machines for these “easily handled” use cases, the more we tend to expect machine interfaces for more interactions, and at some levels, I think that’s dangerous.
The only upside to self-checkout is lower labor expenses for the store. That turns into profit for the shareholders, not savings for the customers, so I don't care about that. And I guess maybe some people don't like the social interaction implied by human cashiers, but if you're not in the mood for that you can just keep your eyes down and grunt or something. Cashiers are used to people who don't want small-talk, they can generally take a hint.
But as someone shopping in Europe, I have never felt using self-checkout burdensome, because I’m usually just getting a few items for that evening or the next couple of days. Using the touchscreen is pure muscle memory, and the advantage of being able to listen to headphones or avoid social interaction outweighs the very slight inconvenience of ringing up my own purchases. Moreover, the queues for self-checkout are always shorter now than for the human cashiers.
No matter the quantity of groceries, a professional can ring it up faster than I can.
> Moreover, sometimes the bagging had been historically done by paid staff, so people weren’t used to doing it themselves
Sometimes, but usually there is something like a 1:5 ratio (or lower) of baggers to cashiers so bagging your own while the cashier rings you up has always been common. The way I see it, bagging isn't really a real job, usually the store hires mentally disabled people to do it as a sort of charity to the community (also the feds pay half of their wages.) Anyway, bagging is easy. I don't have to deal with an obtuse machine to put some stuff in a bag.
Everything inside was intact and undamaged.
I ordered some things some year ago, maybe 5-7 years ago now, and they never arrived. Amazon said they did, and they didn't reimburse me at all. I was pretty frustrated for quite some time about that, especially given my Amazon account goes back to 1996.
I did get invited to Vine about five months ago though, so I guess I can forgive them that $50 worth of stuff, given all the things I've ordered from Vine thus far.
I just thought it was funny the package eventually showed up. I was very confused when it arrived.
Hopefully in the future he gives you less of a problem.
I worked at a phone company call center, back when landlines were more common (20+ years ago). I worked in an inbound call center, where everyone was late on their bill or already had service turned off. We literally didn't have the tools to help with a billing dispute, if that's what wound up causing the issue. We had limited ability to even discuss bills with customers.
Pretty much, we had the ability to help with their late phone bill.
And as frustrating as that is, I figure other companies are the same. It isn't "no incentive" to help, but they are probably stuck without any tools nor abilities to actually help. It isn't even lying, just a crappy way of running a company.
And it is very common. It does mean that it is easier to train folks: We already had a decent amount of training at that job, both classroom and non-classroom, but it was just enough to do our jobs and follow various state & federal laws.
No point in throwing the masses of low-level employees under a bus and crap on them when the likely culprit is corporate policy.
To recognize this is not throwing anyone under the bus or placing blame on specific people. To deride people pointing this out helps ensure nothing improves for those seeking help
Stuff like this suggests major cultural problems across the entire org (which includes employees like this). Probably major changes required to fix.
Oddly enough, it sounds like the run around was induced by software. Notice how they were intended to communicate by adding notes to a file. Presumably a system was put in place to manage the volume of requests they handle, only it didn't work properly or it isn't being used properly.
The guy in this story who said “your AirTag may be there but that doesn’t mean your bag is there” is the opposite of that type.
Maybe they left a note in the file, probably they did nothing.
It is easy to attribute malice to someone when the solution seems to be obvious. It is easy to imply actions or inaction when you have no basis for it outside of a feeling that doing X will result in Y. It's more difficult to see the consequences of that obvious solution.
I spend a good part of some days tracking down and trying to resolve problems because of a combination of policies and software that sucks. Sometimes I make people incredibly happy because I accomplished something noone else could. Sometimes I leave people disappointed, not because their problems are unsolvable but because overstepping certain bounds will break things elsewhere. When I try placing myself in the airline's position, I'm seeing a situation with broken policies and procedures, but also of incredible consequences if circumventing thos policies and procedures was the norm.
If they can check on the item location in a system, why can they not check the ground truth with another employee at the other location?
Sure, the corp can create incentives, but it's always the individual's fault if they choose to lie.
Would that this were true. Hundreds of UK sub-postmasters will tell you of their experience of extreme mistreatment based on the UK Post Office lying as a matter of corporate policy.
My own incompetance in the call center was made up of two things: 1. Absolutely no training on the things in question 2. Absolutely no way for my corporate ID to allow access to details.
There weren't lies. Just things I couldn't do.
In some places, even if you can do something, you can't and keep your job. Sorry, but I'm gonna lie if it means my family eats that night. I expect you to do the same.
People are responsible for their own moral choices.
Again, that’s not to say that the person who did the beating isn’t also responsible.
What is the morality of working a customer support job to support yourself, if the company you work for gives poor customer support as a matter of policy/choice? Would that make you a bad person? If you do business with such a company, and make the mistake of calling for customer support, what would that say about you?
Why? Do you never ever lie?
Those corner cases have basically never come up in my life (stuff like the SS coming to your door and asking if you’re hiding Jews).
Most of the times people justify their own lying they’re wrong to do so imo.
Amazing run around where every week I would email Floyd customer support, they’d said they would order a replacement in a ‘few days’.
Six weeks of that and I submitted a complaint though BBB and I immediately got a reply that the items were now out of stock, and would be likely in stock in 6 months or so.
I ended up accepting the damaged items (at full price, no compensation) rather than wait so long.
A few years ago online-only startups distinguished themselves by providing better than brick-and-mortar customer service but I see this has flipped. I think this is what Cory Doctorow calls enshittification.
Today I can look at the United app to see where my bag is in the process. Of course, that does no good if the computer has the wrong info.
I do toss an AirTag into my luggage to give me some backup to the airline's system. I do understand some skepticism on the airline agent's part. On the other hand, if they genuinely can't find it, I'd expect them to act on the AirTag suggestion whatever their skepticism because they should realize something is amiss with their tracking system at that point. As far as I know, checked luggage thefts are very rare in the US.
How many people earn their living (it's their primary and only job full time job) in America doing this? How large is the "customer service" sector? How many of those people are happy having to deal with nothing but complaints every single day?
With no penalty for a low rate of failure, and insufficient incentive for people to be kind, failures like this are unavoidable.
If you're talking about support in general, they don't say "I don't have the time/resources/ability to handle that". They instead flat out lie to you (how many times I got the "your cancellation was requested" only to be charged again), shift blame often back to customers, ask customers to re-do procedures because of their own mistakes, transfer to phones that often disconnect, or even refuse to perform support by some channels ("please fax this form for cancelling you account"). Not to mention transferring the call and then disconnecting you, very common with cable/telecom.
Often the individual person is not to blame, as they're following orders, but they're also not saying the real reason for the problems, so you can definitely say they're paid to lie.
All of this has a reason. It's rarely lack of time, though. Cancelling some subscription sometimes takes several unnecessary minutes, sometimes hours when you put together days. This time could have been used to do actual support.