You know you hate me?

When the voice with India-accent started to ask my social security number and my password, that’s when I hung up. Don’t the customer service reps in India know that’s a no-no. And then I thought, that was a damn good way to make me hang up and call back and be someone’s else problem. Is that what was going on?

This outsourcing of customer service has been written about ad nauseam. We know that automated customer service can’t think. And I’m beginning to think the human kind can’t think either. But the new advanced procedure is to combine the two of them.

Like this:
If you are calling Ace Computers, press one, if you are not calling Ace Computers, hang up.

If you calling about Ace Computer, model A, press 2, or for Ace Computer B, press 3, or if Ace Computer C, press 4, or if Ace Computer D press 5…for Ace Computer J, press 1 plus 1 (quickly) for 11.

If you are a male, press 6; if you are a female press 9. If you drink tea, press 3, if you drink coffee, press 4 fifty-five times….

I think you get the idea: they diddle you down until they reach the very essence of your problem. And then a human customer service rep’s voice comes on the line and reads to you from the computer’s “help” text what you have already read and tried to no avail.

The phone repair people are worse, they do it all by Q&A, no humans required. AT&T’s all-automated repair service puts all the others with automated-plus-voice systems to shame. They know how to ask the right questions.

Just as you can attend //for tuition costs// travel agent schools to learn to be a travel agent, so too you can attend customer service representatives schools. You can study under a “Customer Service Guru.” Just Google for one in your area or for an online school.

However, It is considered best to get the job first and let the company that hired you, train you.

Now the way to get true customer service is to call them, get frustrated and hang up and wait until they send you a rate-out-service e-mail. Then tear into them, rip them apart. Send off your hate-their-company e-mail. Sit back and wait. Within 24 hours a live American human being will be on the phone ready to fix your problem in 5 minutes.

Are you interested in becoming a customer service rep? What are the requirements? You’re on the phone and the customer doesn’t see you. Hence, you can be as ugly as sin. Every day can be a bad hair day. And you can be constantly depressed — only visually — there’s no need to smile. You don’t need to spend a fortune on go-to-work clothes. You might even work at home in the nude.

Just what is a customer service rep? Well, there’s much more to it than I’ve covered, so I leave you with just its definition for you to start with. Push 2 to continue reading. Or hang up and read no more.

(Two) “Customer service (also known as Client Service) is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.

“According to Turban et al, 2002 “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation”

“Its importance varies by product, industry and customer. As an example, an expert customer might require less pre-purchase service (i.e., advice) than a novice. In many cases, customer service is more important if the purchase relates to a “service” as opposed to a “product”.

“Customer service may be provided by a person (e.g., sales and service representative), or by automated means called self-service. Examples of self service are Internet sites.”

-Wikipedia

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