Last month, I had a series of run-ins* with various customer service entities that nearly drove me over the edge of sanity. I was on the brink of finally setting up that archive in Antarctica that I've been talking about for ages, they were that bad.
One of them involved trying to leave feedback about a certain delivery service that cannot actually deliver packages to my complex because it requires a physical key and this particular service doesn't have one driver assigned to the route. Obviously, for security reasons, it would be nutters to give the gazillion different drivers who might stop by to deliver a package their own key. For months-possibly-years, I have been training them one at a time on how to actually deliver a package to my complex. And it is exhausting. So I tried to send feedback explaining the situation but I was only allowed to leave feedback about the actual delivery person, NOT the company itself. Which just seems like they are saying, "Leave us anything we can blame on our employees, but we aren't interested in constructive feedback about anything else." Which is silly and rude.
Then there was a package from a different company that didn't show up. I tracked it, and followed all the instructions on their website for what to do if you can't find a package: wait 3 days, check the entire property (which in my case includes 10 buildings, all of which have 2 possible entrances where a package might be left), etc. Nothing. So I emailed. They emailed back and told me to do all the things on their website. Which, I will cut them some slack, because they probably do get a lot of people who don't check to see what to do and just email. And when I replied and explained I had already done those things, they were very prompt in getting me a refund. It was just frustrating to not have the thing arrive (and, probably not their fault).
But the last one was the worst. I was trying to download something, and whenever I clicked on the link to download it, nothing happened. I read the website and did all the things. Then I tried to contact the company, which doesn't answer phones after 6:00, which is a pain, because I'm at work until then, and can't really problem solve for something that's on a computer in a different location. So I did their chat, which just puts you through to a robot, and the robot just kept telling me to do all the things on the website. I finally figured out how to get past the robot to an actual human, and the human told me to do all the things on the website, which I told them I had already done, so they told me, "Clear your cookies and your cache." Which, friends, is the new next step after, "Is it plugged in? Did you turn it on?", in case you wondered.
So I tried that, which took forever, and when it was done, didn't work, but the chat had already been closed. Sigh.
Well, I decided to try again another day, and it was the same rigamarole with the robot, but this time, I got past him faster (it's like a new kind of video game! Bypass the bot!!!). And then the human, after reading the chat conversation in which I explained that I couldn't download something from the internet, hopped on and said, "It looks like you're having problems with the internet." Which is not at all what I had said, and made me question human's literacy skills.** So I explained to human the problem and that I had already done ALL THE THINGS and cleared my cache. And he sent me the link to do all the things, which again makes me question human's literacy skills, because I am not at all understanding what was confusing about my explanation, but I have wondered lately if I have some weird syndrome where I hear everything in complete, comprehensible English sentences but what actually comes out of my mouth and is heard by everyone else is gibberish***.
Well, this human tells me to try starting my computer in safe mode to solve the problem, which 1) doesn't work and 2) again kicks me out of the chat. And, as a bonus, 3) has me wanting to bang my head against a wall repeatedly.
I never did get anyone from that company--robot OR human--to solve the problem. I figured it out myself when my computer asked about updating Java. I updated and voila, problem solved. (Which, no, that didn't come up in any of the google results when I tried to see if anyone else had the same problem. I really did do my due diligence).
Anyway, I'm not saying the penguins in Antarctica would be any better at customer service, but on the other hand, I wouldn't expect them to be, so I wouldn't be disappointed. And maybe it was just a bad run, and I'll go for months or years without such taxing customer service interactions. But, sheesh!
**Maybe it was another more advanced bot?
***Why is it "gibberish" and not "jibberish"? I think the j looks better and makes more sense, really.
No comments:
Post a Comment