"Please listen carefully as our menu has recently changed.": Customer service or customer disservice, that is the question. AND, A PROMISE that the most valuable information you may ever receive is the last sentence of this blogpost.

 

Thank you Scott Adams for Dilbert which helps to vent our frustrations.

The blessing, however, is that it is more often a parody of our frustrations rather than 'every single time.' But hey, it happens.

Last week I listened to "... our menu may have changed" through three sets before I got a crack at a real person. At last!

"Our agents are presently helping other customers. Your call is important to us and we will be with you as soon as possible." .... pause, then a very pleasant machine voice tells me "... an agent will be with you in (pause) 3 hours and 40 minutes. You can leave your number and we will call you back. You will not lose your place in line." 

As I said, that was last week so I am expecting that call... let's see... (checking my watch)... any minute now. Really.

Business must have been so good they were just too busy to call back. 

Aaargg!

Then there are those calls that come with a warm, real voice that try to have a pleasant, understanding, helpful conversation and get it right. Thank God, life can be more real at times.

Amazon, the biggest company in the world, may not do everything right (and they don't) but it's success is built on getting more right, from a consumer standpoint. Almost nothing from Amazon involves a phone call, which is not perfect, but we do build up a resistance against customer service that often isn't and the commitment of time. Time is not money. It is much more valuable.

Oh, lest I forget those robo calls that happen at dinner time or any time... they are different than consumer service of course, but somewhat in the same vein of how the phone reorders our lives, and in this case, our time AND money.

I'm sure my 14-year-old car might have an expired warranty but I can live with that. And I don't regret that I could "... already be a winner," many times over if I had just paid attention to what was being offered.

Don't you wonder how much time and effort it must take to scam us one way or another? Here's a really terrific piece from the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) Bulletin on scammers and how they operate. It is the very best real life story of 'them' that I have ever read and a most compelling read:

Lessons from inside the Fraud Factory: We Witnessed International Phone Scammers In Action. What we Saw Will Both Terrify You And Help Keep You andYour Money Safe and Secure.