Wednesday 21 June 2017

In search of . . .

A live voice when I call a business. If you are like me you loathe getting an automated phone menu. As soon as I get a recording I start mashing "zero" until I get a live person. I do not believe recordings and menu options make your company more efficient. People like to talk to actual people when they phone a business. Companies do not seem to get this simple fact.

I phoned the Apple Store in Calgary. I immediately got a recording and I started hitting "zero" to get a live person. I like Apple and I like their products even if I do find them overpriced. I find their customer service has always been great. The problem is that they want you to make an appointment if you have a problem. So I tried to phone for one.

I eventually got a live person who was pleasant. When I told her I wanted to make an appointment to get my phone fixed I found out she was in some kind of call centre. Even though I called the store I got bumped somewhere else. She did transfer me to the store and I got my appointment. All this after twenty minutes. I honestly think nonsense like this costs businesses money.

5 comments:

  1. The automated menu carp drives me nuts... just lost at least 90 minutes of my life last week dealing with the cable company and wading through their menu and prompts... wrote a pissy email but didn't get much of a response other than "we're sorry" but we can't go anything else. I did threaten to change cable companies as I have options in my neighborhood... we'll see how the service call goes tomorrow.

    People want to talk to people... that's the bottom line...oh and we like to talk to people who we can understand... I know I'm treading on shaky ground here..LOL

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    1. I understand perfectly. It was a struggle to be polite in this post.

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  2. That is one of my pet peeves. I want to talk to a living, breathing human being whose first language is English. I am not as nice as you all are. I am not above telling them so in no uncertain terms. I am old. I don't have enough time left to waste it pushing button 1 for this and button 2 for that.

    On the other hand, I am not above wasting the time of those annoying people who call trying to sell me something I neither want nor need. Actually, that is sort of fun. :)

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  3. Agh...makes me mad just reading about these..I find myself yelling AGENT into these automated systems that want voice responses. Or mashing '0'.

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  4. Online scheduling for appointments works extremely well at www.apple.ca and only takes a few minutes.

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