What Happened to Courtesy & Customer Service??
November 7, 2011I’ve had it up to my pretty blue eyes with inefficient customer service, blocked incoming calls, and (shoot.me.now.) robo calls.
There are days when I miss the phones of old … Remember those big, heavy receivers that made it very easy, and audible, to hang up on someone. Back then, you knew when someone had hung up on you and there was huge satisfaction in slamming down the phone. <deep sigh>
Rant 1:
Callers from blocked or unfamiliar numbers who refuse to identify themselves.
Me: “Hello?”
Caller: “This call is for Pamela Starr.”
Me: “Who is calling?”
Caller: “Is this Pamela Starr?”
Me: ” Who is calling and what are you calling about?”
At which point the caller identifies her/himself or becomes belligerent or hangs up … REALLY?? You called me. I”m pretty sure I am within my rights to know with whom I am speaking!
Rant 2:
The ‘hell’ that is automatic phone systems with voice recognition and infinite loops of automatic transfers. Need I say more?
Rant 3:
Door to door solicitation –
Comcast sales dude shows up at my door yesterday (a Sunday). I politely refuse his pitch and send him on his way. When I left my house later in the day, I find #*&)%@ sales materials stuck in my door. SERIOUSLY??!! In what universe is it okay to litter my door with materials I already said I did not want??!
Today, I called ‘dude’ – my first instinct was to invite him back to ‘discuss my options’ and then shove his materials in his face. Instead, I decided I’d call him to ‘splain the error of his ways … he PUT ME ON HOLD!!
Rant 4:
Delivery folk with attitude –
USPS: We have ‘mail stations’ – you know, the big, gray collection of locked mailboxes set in the middle of the block. There are maybe 15 boxes per station with one designated for outgoing letters – not over-sized envelopes or small boxes, just letters.
- I don’t check the mail everyday and there are times that the mailbox gets full – especially during holiday season. On one such day, I find crammed into the mailbox, a scribbled note from the mail-person admonishing me for not picking up my mail – this on the very same day that he had delivered certified letters to my door for signature … would it have killed him to either mention his ‘concern’ or even, I don’t know deliver the mail?!
- There are occasions when I have something slightly larger than an average letter to send and it just doesn’t warrant a trip to the post office, so I leave it in my mailbox for the mail-person to pick up (usually with a note of gratitude). I had an over-sized envelope to send out, and I left it (sans note) for pick-up. Mr. Mail-Person left me a scrawled note on the back of a business card to tell me to stop using my mailbox for outgoing mail and to call for free pick-up. Um, okay … so he’d rather schlep to my front door rather than just pick everything up in one stop?
FedEx:
FedEx ‘missed’ me today. I had dawdled upstairs until about 11:30 this morning and then went to my ‘office’. I checked the delivery status of my new laptop and saw that they had attempted delivery at noon. Sure enough, there is a ‘sorry we missed you’ ticket on my door.
I called to request redelivery along with a courtesy call to let me know when they are at my door – I explain that the acoustics in my house are awful and I often miss the doorbell when I’m working. A female supervisor called to confirm my request for a same day attempt at redeliver (pretty cool) and promised that I would receive the requested courtesy call. It was about 2 pm, so I decided to break for lunch; not 20 minutes later, there is a knock on the door. It’s a ticked-off female FedEx driver (with my new ‘puter!) who tells me, “Next time leave a note on the door if you’re going to be gone.” Huh? WHAT??!! You want me to ADVERTISE to the entire neighborhood that I might not be home?
<shakes head in disbelief>
My, how times have changed …
November 8th, 2011 at 5:09 pm
If you find out what happened to it, let me know! 😀
Oh, and bless your heart!
Lynne
January 20th, 2012 at 8:57 pm
What a great post, Pamela. So true! I once became so frustrated after waiting on an auto-phone cue, and pushing various numbers, as prompted, for more than thirty minutes, that I may have uttered a curse word or two under my breath (it was a robot, not a person, just me and the robot) and much to my dismay, I was then transferred into the “Spanish” cue, which I could not readily understand as a non-Spanish speaking person, so I had to hang up and start all over with the cues and number pushing! ha ha. Lesson learned. I can certainly relate to you on this one.
~ Jamie