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Your call is important to us...
31 July 2005
Nowhere has such an egregious lie been promulgated than "your call is important to us." Jean Chretien's "We will rescind the GST" pales in comparison. Even the grand whopper of the era, George Dubya's "We're in Iraq because of the weapons of mass destruction" is little more than a passing prevarication when measured against the ubiquitous falsehood repeated on millions of telephone systems every day.
No one cares about you, your problems, your issues, your feedback, your sorry little account. If they did, they'd hire a human being to answer your call. It's that simple.
You're nothing more than an annoyance to the corporations and your government. You've paid your money, bought their products, given a credit card number - now shove off. It's annoying to have you call with a problem or needing help. In fact, they don't even want you to call with money. They will call you when they want you to shell out more. If you call them to order more services, more products or extend a contract, you just cost them more, and that increases the length of time the CEOs or executives have to wait before they get another bonus. So bugger off, okay?
When some automated answering machine tells you "your call is important to us," you know what they really mean is, "you are so unimportant to us that we can't be bothered hiring enough people in customer service to answer your phone call."
And then, to add insult to injury, you'll be forced to listen to annoying music while you wait, chosen by someone in marketing who really, really doesn't like people who call his or her company. Why else would you be treated to 25 minutes of non-stop saccharine string-orchestra covers of aged pop songs, or whiny, derivative country music, or worse, tedious repetitive rap noise? This is when it truly becomes "on-hold hell." No company that gives a shit about you, no firm or organization or government that cares the eensiest, teensiest bit about you will force you to listen to on-hold music. They do it because they can, and they mean to hurt you.
Lest we forget the mind-numbing maze of options you have to thread your way through, trying to remember if you should press 4 or 5 when the system is already droning on about pressing 96 if you're calling from a country that starts with C and ends with A but isn't China... inevitably you end up in a dead end with no appropriate options to choose, and no easy way to get out, except backing up one menu at a time - if at all possible - until you finally reach some place where you might have a suitable choice. Or worse, hanging up and starting all over. That's the Kevorkian phone system: annoy you enough that you will hang up and - they hope - commit seppuku.
And then there are those systems that demand you input all sorts of data, from account numbers to credit card numbers to invoice numbers, and even your date of birth. Then, when (and if) you finally get transferred to some bored-sounding, over-worked human, you have to repeat all of it because the high-tech phone system is incapable of transferring all that data to the worker's computer screen. We can put a space ship in orbit around Saturn, a billion miles away, and transmit pictures from it every day, but we can't create a telephone system that can transfer the data you entered a few feet to the customer service rep.
Due to high call volume, we are experiencing delays... they really mean due to exceptionally low staffing levels they can't get to your call. Besides which, they pay the wage slaves who answer the calls so little they don't have any real incentive to be efficient. So you wait and wait and wait... and end up screaming in frustration at a machine because you just got transferred to the wrong department or sent back to the menu maze.
Worse, you may take your rage and frustration out on the hapless human who finally gets to pick up your call. After wading through an inefficient, clumsy and user-hostile phone system for 20, 30 even 60 minutes, hanging on hold while being forced to listen to skin-crawling tunes, no wonder we explode when someone finally answers.
And then there are those "Phone Betty" systems that use voice recognition. Some other turkey in marketing thought it would be easier and "friendlier" to have a computer ask you to speak to it, then tell you it doesn't understand what you said. You end up screaming at the emotionless, neutral machine voice and slamming the phone down, or punching zero a hundred times in the vain hope they've programmed it to transfer your call to an operator before you throw the f***ing thing through a window.
Why do we have to listen to interminable messages, before we get to the menu choices? I don't give a rat's ass if you've got plastic flowerpots on sale, or if this is "support the one-legged survivors of the Champas war" week, or that I can get pre-programmed and universally unhelpful "answers" on your web site. I don't want to hear about what I need to know about visiting hours, or what my interest rates will be if I transfer all of my money to you or how wonderful my life will be if I subscribe to your cable or satellite service - just tell me how to get to the billing department so I can find out why you screwed up this month. Tell me now, right now and put all that other crap after the important stuff. Don't waste my time!
Perhaps the worst, the very nastiest, most vicious assault on customers is the advertising. Several suppliers I deal with fill the dead on-hold space with self-serving advertisements about their products or services. I have an extremely low tolerance for TV shows with ads and am prone to turn off shows mid-broadcast because I weary of the ads. More than three in a row is almost guaranteed to cause me to switch stations or shut it off, and pick up a book. But when I'm trapped on hold, having to listen to more obnoxious advertising is a sure way to send me over the top.
Automated phone systems are vile, hostile and inhumane. The people who designed them should be tried for crimes against humanity. The people who bought them for their companies or government departments, and then fired their human staff should be put up against the wall and shot.
I spent several hours in the telephone system hell run by Bell Canada. All I wanted to do was get new phones and extend my contract. I wanted to give them my money. Gee, you would have thought giving them more money was a crime. In the end, I took my business to Rogers, because I only spent two hours in their phone hell...
This week, I tried to call my father who was admitted to a Toronto hospital. It takes three f*cking minutes to get through the messages, the warnings, the welcomes - to the point where you can press the bloody room number.
Your wait time is approximately 45 minutes... I've heard that and longer times predicted. Who has the time and the patience to dedicate an hour or more of their lives to waiting on hold while your inefficient, unproductive and customer-hostile system crawls along at glacial speeds?
It's time to stop the madness. We have to protest against the accelerating trend to dehumanize our transactions. Refuse to do business with companies that use automated phone systems or demand direct line phone numbers for everyone you finally talk to. We must humanize the technology - hire people, real people and scrap the computers. Press zero a million times until someone answers, or tie up the lines by going to dinner when you're left on hold. Get a fax number for complaints and fax 100 copies of the same page, demanding a verbal reply.
Do something, or else you'll remain a victim of technopoly. There isn't a CEO out there who needs another yacht. They can damn well do without their annual bonus in order to retain a couple of humans to answer their phones.
No one cares about you, your problems, your issues, your feedback, your sorry little account. If they did, they'd hire a human being to answer your call. It's that simple.
You're nothing more than an annoyance to the corporations and your government. You've paid your money, bought their products, given a credit card number - now shove off. It's annoying to have you call with a problem or needing help. In fact, they don't even want you to call with money. They will call you when they want you to shell out more. If you call them to order more services, more products or extend a contract, you just cost them more, and that increases the length of time the CEOs or executives have to wait before they get another bonus. So bugger off, okay?
When some automated answering machine tells you "your call is important to us," you know what they really mean is, "you are so unimportant to us that we can't be bothered hiring enough people in customer service to answer your phone call."
And then, to add insult to injury, you'll be forced to listen to annoying music while you wait, chosen by someone in marketing who really, really doesn't like people who call his or her company. Why else would you be treated to 25 minutes of non-stop saccharine string-orchestra covers of aged pop songs, or whiny, derivative country music, or worse, tedious repetitive rap noise? This is when it truly becomes "on-hold hell." No company that gives a shit about you, no firm or organization or government that cares the eensiest, teensiest bit about you will force you to listen to on-hold music. They do it because they can, and they mean to hurt you.
Lest we forget the mind-numbing maze of options you have to thread your way through, trying to remember if you should press 4 or 5 when the system is already droning on about pressing 96 if you're calling from a country that starts with C and ends with A but isn't China... inevitably you end up in a dead end with no appropriate options to choose, and no easy way to get out, except backing up one menu at a time - if at all possible - until you finally reach some place where you might have a suitable choice. Or worse, hanging up and starting all over. That's the Kevorkian phone system: annoy you enough that you will hang up and - they hope - commit seppuku.
And then there are those systems that demand you input all sorts of data, from account numbers to credit card numbers to invoice numbers, and even your date of birth. Then, when (and if) you finally get transferred to some bored-sounding, over-worked human, you have to repeat all of it because the high-tech phone system is incapable of transferring all that data to the worker's computer screen. We can put a space ship in orbit around Saturn, a billion miles away, and transmit pictures from it every day, but we can't create a telephone system that can transfer the data you entered a few feet to the customer service rep.
Due to high call volume, we are experiencing delays... they really mean due to exceptionally low staffing levels they can't get to your call. Besides which, they pay the wage slaves who answer the calls so little they don't have any real incentive to be efficient. So you wait and wait and wait... and end up screaming in frustration at a machine because you just got transferred to the wrong department or sent back to the menu maze.
Worse, you may take your rage and frustration out on the hapless human who finally gets to pick up your call. After wading through an inefficient, clumsy and user-hostile phone system for 20, 30 even 60 minutes, hanging on hold while being forced to listen to skin-crawling tunes, no wonder we explode when someone finally answers.
And then there are those "Phone Betty" systems that use voice recognition. Some other turkey in marketing thought it would be easier and "friendlier" to have a computer ask you to speak to it, then tell you it doesn't understand what you said. You end up screaming at the emotionless, neutral machine voice and slamming the phone down, or punching zero a hundred times in the vain hope they've programmed it to transfer your call to an operator before you throw the f***ing thing through a window.
Why do we have to listen to interminable messages, before we get to the menu choices? I don't give a rat's ass if you've got plastic flowerpots on sale, or if this is "support the one-legged survivors of the Champas war" week, or that I can get pre-programmed and universally unhelpful "answers" on your web site. I don't want to hear about what I need to know about visiting hours, or what my interest rates will be if I transfer all of my money to you or how wonderful my life will be if I subscribe to your cable or satellite service - just tell me how to get to the billing department so I can find out why you screwed up this month. Tell me now, right now and put all that other crap after the important stuff. Don't waste my time!
Perhaps the worst, the very nastiest, most vicious assault on customers is the advertising. Several suppliers I deal with fill the dead on-hold space with self-serving advertisements about their products or services. I have an extremely low tolerance for TV shows with ads and am prone to turn off shows mid-broadcast because I weary of the ads. More than three in a row is almost guaranteed to cause me to switch stations or shut it off, and pick up a book. But when I'm trapped on hold, having to listen to more obnoxious advertising is a sure way to send me over the top.
Automated phone systems are vile, hostile and inhumane. The people who designed them should be tried for crimes against humanity. The people who bought them for their companies or government departments, and then fired their human staff should be put up against the wall and shot.
I spent several hours in the telephone system hell run by Bell Canada. All I wanted to do was get new phones and extend my contract. I wanted to give them my money. Gee, you would have thought giving them more money was a crime. In the end, I took my business to Rogers, because I only spent two hours in their phone hell...
This week, I tried to call my father who was admitted to a Toronto hospital. It takes three f*cking minutes to get through the messages, the warnings, the welcomes - to the point where you can press the bloody room number.
Your wait time is approximately 45 minutes... I've heard that and longer times predicted. Who has the time and the patience to dedicate an hour or more of their lives to waiting on hold while your inefficient, unproductive and customer-hostile system crawls along at glacial speeds?
It's time to stop the madness. We have to protest against the accelerating trend to dehumanize our transactions. Refuse to do business with companies that use automated phone systems or demand direct line phone numbers for everyone you finally talk to. We must humanize the technology - hire people, real people and scrap the computers. Press zero a million times until someone answers, or tie up the lines by going to dinner when you're left on hold. Get a fax number for complaints and fax 100 copies of the same page, demanding a verbal reply.
Do something, or else you'll remain a victim of technopoly. There isn't a CEO out there who needs another yacht. They can damn well do without their annual bonus in order to retain a couple of humans to answer their phones.
I think it's difficult to tell which lies are the most egregious these days. There's not much twisting of the truth going on -- people just tell you the precise opposite of the truth. Though it seems laughable (where not tragic), this method must be effective for a large segment of the population.
Perhaps more relevant to your post on movies, I rented "No Somos Nadie" this past weekend. I'm relatively sure this means "We are nobodies", though for some reason the English Title is "God is On the Air". Anyway, the phrase "we are nobodies" seems relevant to many daily experiences, and I was reminded of it when reading your post. [For what it's worth, the Spanish film shows how ugly TV might get in the future, and though I am a bit hesitant to recommend the movie to you, I found it very worthwhile. I would think you could find a movie review pretty easily, though don't read one that reveals too much about the plot....]