Pet peeve time.
You buy something. Or travel somewhere. Or make plans.
And something goes awry.
What you ordered came in wrong. Or late. Or not at all.
Your hotel room was not what you expected. Or too loud. Or dirty.
Your restaurant reservations were lost. Or the food was bad. Or the service was rude.
You know what I mean. What do you do?
You could email, or post to social media, or go straight to skewering on Yelp.
Or you could call customer service and try to get a resolution.
After spending an hour online trying in vain to locate that secret 800 number that companies never want you to find (Try finding Apple’s phone number on their website. Won’t happen.), you call, and following running the gauntlet of Press 1 if you’re a living, breathing humanoid, you get a human being with a voice and possibly a brain. Hallelujah!
Being the precise, organized and detailed person you are, you carefully and unemotionally explain the issue.
Then you are told, with many hundreds of words, why this person can’t help you. They either give you someone else’s phone number. Or email address. Or website to visit. Or ask for your information to leave a message for someone who will never, ever, even in a million zillion years, call you back. Or explain why nothing at all can be done to help you. At all.
You capitulate, realizing this avenue of inquiry is a big, fat dead end.
And then the customer service person hits you with:
“Is there anything else I can help you with?”
That’s when my head wants to explode.
Anything ELSE? How about anything AT ALL!?
People, please. If you are in customer service handling these types of issues, pay attention. If you actually did something to assist the poor, hapless shmuck on the other end of the line, then, sure, offer up your canned question. But if you were no help to him at all, then do us all a favor and just apologize for your inability to assist. Or thank him for his business. Or acknowledge the time and frustration he expended because of your company’s problem. Be honest. Be empathetic. Don’t be an automaton.
Or, be like Joe Cocker, who always gets lots and lots help from his good friends:
