Is there a large organization, be it a private business or governmental organization or NGO, that currently employes enough "Customer Service" representatives to handle the volume of telephone business that gets directed their way? I doubt it.
How many times have you called a company or gov't office only to encounter a voice mail answering device that has you jump through hoops categorizing the reason for your call and THEN directs you to stay on the line until a real person can "help you"? This wouldn't be so bad if they meant it, if they intended to come on the line within a reasonable amount of time. But after three or loops of Musak and recorded messages extolling their desire to get to you soon, then comes the dreaded different announcement "We are having an unusual high volume of calls today. For faster service why don't you try to get our computer choices to satisfy you.?" or something to that effect.
I'll bet that as much as half the time we, the poor caller, give up, hang up and decide either to try again at some "less busy" time or to resolve our issue some other way, such as writing them a letter. I for one don't buy their "today there's an unusual high volume of calls" excuse. It happens too often to be that unusual. What they mean but don't want to admit is that they refuse to employ sufficient phone answerers to handle their normal volume of phone traffic. This was probably one of the ways they got "leaner" back when they "right-sized" in order to drive up their profit margin. Profits for them; costs for us. They never calculate the lost time suffered by their customers, clients, patrons, parishoners, whatever.
I am not anti-technology. I often use the self-service checkout lines at the local supermarket. But on those occasions when I need to talk to a real live person, sure would be nice if companies and organizations would make it possible.
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Oh, you have got me started now! Not only do you trudge through the hoops and loops as you so wonderfully detailed, but when you do get to that customer service rep, in all actuality, they are required to read from a scripted text, some proprietary software tool that is nothing more than a series of options like what you just muddled your way through. The options for correcting your issue are options devised from some study of possible issues likely encountered by any consumer. The representative's job is to read you the scripted text and questions to discern yes/no responses that get to some pre-conceived issue and its attendant outcome/resolution. The representative is not allowed to deviate from the script, they are not allowed to think for themselves, and the notion of exercising discretion has been removed from the process. This enables the business to employ lower skilled workers whom can, because of their lower skills base, be paid far less, and likely employed only as contract labor - which saves the business human resource expenses, as well as cutting down on benefits related expenses. The contract labor is likely outsourced to either lower bidder or over-seas, if the target project fields consumer concerns. Consumer dissatisfaction is not enough to bring the customer service back from over-seas - major high tech firms will attest to this. It is only when the enterprise / business clients complains that they can not understand the accents of tech support (a service the business has paid handsomely for, and depends upon for their business to operate smoothly and productively) that service (for business clients alone) returns to the states. And, see the earlier section, the tech support is going to the lowest-payable level of competency. Money is not in the consumer sector at all, so when consumers voice complaints about poor service, or difficult service it bears little weight. You can no longer find empowered, discretion using customer service that has the authority to correct issues, make fiduciary recompenses or anything now.
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